Integrated Community Clerkships

Launched in 2004, the UBC MD Undergraduate Program’s Integrated Community Clerkship (ICC) stream provides Year 3 MDUP students with the opportunity to enhance their clinical education and training by living and learning within a rural community for an entire academic year. Under the guidance and mentorship of practicing physicians, students follow the paths of patients, exposing them to multiple clinical disciplines while further developing their clinicals skills.

As the first university in North America to pilot an integrated clerkship, the UBC MDUP ICC is now based in seven communities across British Columbia.

Longitudinal Integrated Clerkships, in all their permutations, have become a successful and innovative model of undergraduate clinical education, endorsed and implemented by medical schools globally. The success and strength of these clerkships is now informing medical curriculum innovation worldwide.

What defines an Integrated Community Clerkship within the UBC MDUP?

The main organizing principles of integrated community clerkships are continuity and integration. The continuity descriptor applies to geographic community, preceptor faculty, and ongoing longitudinal patient care. The integration descriptor refers to the learning of multiple disciplines on an ongoing basis throughout the academic year. In the ICC stream, students are integrated into one community, one hospital, and the host of health care professional teams and resources that serve the community.

Placing a student in one BC community, with one group of teachers, and with a defined patient population, fosters professional identity and accountability. When students are exposed to multiple clinical disciplines on an ongoing basis, clinical confidence and expertise flourish. For the student, this means practical, hands-on patient interaction and regular connections with preceptors who come to know and trust each student.  This is an exciting way to learn.

The ICC stream within UBC MDUP is both a rewarding and challenging program. Adaptability and flexibility, as well as a high level of self-motivation are paramount. Students need to be prepared for independent self-study. Preceptors get to know students well – including the student’s sense of motivation, work ethic, and individual learning curve.

There are myriad learning opportunities and each day encompasses a variety of traditional disciplines and team encounters. Supports for students are abundant and include dedicated preceptors, Site Directors, and Program Coordinators. We genuinely want students to succeed and are there to support students every step of the way.

The success of the ICC is attested by students who went through the ICC having equal success rates in matching to their Residency Program of choice, regardless of specialty. Indeed, students from UBC MDUP ICCs have matched to almost all residency programs, including the most competitive specialties such as emergency medicine, anesthesiology, and ophthalmology.

We encourage you to have a look at the various established ICC sites within the UBC MDUP: Eastern Fraser Valley, Duncan, Fort Saint John, Terrace, Trail, Vernon and Vernon/Revelstoke. Each ICC site offers distinctive learning experiences while delivering an integrated, continuous learning model. Each community is unique, providing exciting learning opportunities; for example, relationships with Indigenous partners, proximity to urban centers, booming industrial areas – these variously influence how medical care is provided in different places.

Enjoy learning about the ICC and best wishes with your future in Medicine!

Dr. Natasha DeSousa
ICC Program Director
natasha.desousa@ubc.ca

Dr. Maggie Watt
ICC Expansion Director
maggie.watt@ubc.ca