Community Preceptor Testimonials

Aylmer
The diversity of experiences are well balanced with the time spent in a particular clinic. This allowed me to sufficiently get to know two different sites/supervisors while providing me with adequate diversity of family practices.

Chatham
Extremely varied learning opportunities - time spent in office, procedures clinic, ER, OB, hospitalist care. Very enthusiastic teaching, welcoming environment.
Flexibility and a variety of clinical experiences.
This rotation was excellent. I find that the physicians are amazing educators, as well as their nursing staff. I felt that I could actually see myself practicing in this community.
Experience with procedures (joint injections, suturing).
Good variety in patients and presenting complaints.

Clinton
The rotation, especially in a rural area, allows you to see a large variety of cases as well as to gain a lot of hands on experience. In a rural setting you are typically one on one with your preceptor and therefore are able to learn exactly what you want and get all of your questions answered.
Working in Clinton allowed me to see just how varied a family medicine practice can be. I was able to spend days in the clinic, days in the ER, days in the OR assisting on anaesthesia as well as assisting with deliveries and spending time at the local nursing home. There was never a dull moment as I gained a large and essential volume of knowledge and skills. The preceptors are great, the community is extremely welcoming and the clinic is well run by very efficient and friendly staff.

Flesherton
Very good one on one interaction with preceptors, physicians go out of their way to teach students.
Great teaching provided by preceptor even though clinics are quite busy, good amount of inpatient care as well (2 hours daily).

Goderich
The intentional teaching by Dr. Appavoo and Dr. Neal was excellent and I'm very thankful for the time they spent.

Hanover
The variety and the degree of customizability is unparalleled. The experience was the richest so far in clerkship. I enjoyed having a main preceptor but also working at least once with the other physicians. I enjoyed having muliple emerg shift, definitely the best learning experience.
Amazing variety, wonderful hospitality, unparalleled variety, opportunities to do 'hands-on' learning.

Ilderton
A great group of knowledgeable physicians. The entire team was very easy to work with. There were many teaching opportunities. No one was ever too busy to explain procedures or approaches to treatments.
Overall saw a good variety of patients, got to work fairly independently and was encouraged to come to own treatment plans and diagnosis by all the doctors working there which was a great learning experience.
Ilderton provides a collegial atmosphere that is conducive to learning. The clinic is bright, the staff are happy, and the doctors are all interested in teaching. It is difficult to imagine a better spot to learn family medicine.

Ingersoll
Lots of hands on experience, lots of independence, no other learners to compete with. Great variety in cases and student roles.
Dr. Chawla was an excellent instructor, great teaching around cases. Very encouraging about trying new skills - allowed me to do excisional biopsy, lots of suturing. Good variety - ER shifts, some in-patients, clinic, lumps and bumps. He is patient and is willing to take his time to teach you. It is a great learning experience, you get a lot of independence which I think allows you to learn much more.
He is very good at teaching. He is patient and never intimidating. He is so approachable that you feel free to ask lots of questions.
His staff are all super helpful and kind. The whole team tries very hard to make you feel welcome.
Very good staff, wide variety of clinical experiences.

Kitchener - Centre for Family Medicine
Lots of learning experience and clinical exposure. Good learning pace. Busy clinic which allowed for learning. Wide variety of patients. Good mix of core family medicine cases. Involvement in procedures. Great staff and physicians. Wonderful facilities. Excellent patient load. I loved this rotation. The health team in Kitchener is a good learning experience as they have a multitude of different clinics and opportunities to work with nurse practitioners, respiratory therapists and social workers. There is also a dermatologist among the team which lends a unique opportunity for clerks who don't get very much exposure to dermatology. The staff and nurses are great.

Kitchener - Dr. Cescon
Worked with several different preceptors, which was actually good because I saw several different styles of practice, but still worked with the same preceptors several times so that they knew me. Got to do some procedures in their procedure room. Great EMR. Great allied health, lots of opportunity to work with them if you want to.

Lions Head
There were lots of patients to see and all were very willing to have a student paticipate in their care. The staff were all very friendly and welcoming and it was great to get the perspective of long term practitioners and newly graduated ones.
Great one-on-one teaching from the attendings. The smaller environment allows you to be involved in the various stages of the same patient's care. Gain a better understanding how the resources and limitations of a hospital in a rural setting.
Allowed me to be very hands on with patients, do all my own blood work, iv access, ecgs, procedures, and allowed me to take a lot of responsiblity while on call. Facility was great and living accomodations great as well. Amazing experience!
Dr. David Thomson allows students to set own learning goals and objectives; very flexible. Will accommodate students' learning needs. Also, excellent role model in terms of bedside manner and rapport with patients.

London - Dr. Bigham
A great instructor, took the time to teach around patients. Excellent rapport with patients and a very friendly person to work with. Lots of freedom to interview patients and perform procedures. Nursing home work provided a good balance of practice. Would like to set my clinic up much like his in the future.

London - Dr. Despard
Busy family practice, wide range of patients and cases. Large immigrant population- relevant to family practice in any urban centre.
Great teacher.

London - Dr. Faulds
Office is professionally run and is a leader in chronic disease management. I learned a lot about preventative medicine and good practices for maintaining optimal patient health and satisfaction.
Working with Dr. Faulds and the family health team was a fantastic learning experience. The team work is exceptional. Dr. Faulds is very dedicated to her career and teaching of students. She allows students to be independant and really get the most out of the rotation. I would absolutely recommend working at this facility.

London - Dr. Hawthorne
Excellent teacher and is the best family doctor that I have worked with yet. She is thorough and has served as an amazing role model for my future patient-doctor interactions.
She is a great role model for me and is really up to date with current guidelines and research. She is understanding and allows students to have independence in her office. She takes time to teach and is all around a great person and physician.

London - Dr. W. McKeough
This was a great learning experience and Dr. McKeough was an excellent clinical teacher. I was exposed to a wide variety of patients and scenarios and he always took the time to carefully explain key learning points and relevant physical exam skills. I feel this was probably the greatest learning experience of my clinical clerkship to-date.

London - Dr. Noftle
Population is unique, and has different needs than those found in rural or other urban family practices. The opportunity to see Dr. Noftle in the methadone clinic was a fantastic experience. Had an opportunity to learn about intercommunity health centres . Each patient is alotted 30-60min per visit, meaning that the physicians are not rushing through patients, time to learn and talk things over with the physicians after being able to see them. Presence of nurse practitioners who do annual physicals and well-person (mostly prenatal, well-baby, child) health.

London - Drs. Peckan and Spence
This is a really good rotation for those considering urban family medicine. It is a great representation of how a family health team works together for the care of patients. At this practise they have access to a psychiatrist, social work, dietician, nurses and pharmacist. There is a lab and x-ray facility on site which allows for quick results of tests you have ordered. You will see a wide variety of patients from newborns to elderly, and a good number of small procedures (skin biopsies, endometrial biopsies, immunizations, etc.) In a typical day the doctor will have scheduled anywhere from 12-30 patients, with your usual 9-5 hours. However once a week you are given the opportunity to work in the after hours clinic (on call for the Victoria Family Health Team), where you will see acute illnesses.

London - Dr. Robinson
She gave me a lot of responsibility, I also had many chances to talk to her on a personal level about the life of a family doctor in London.

London - Dr. Tu
Allows a lot of autonomy with patients; very good at giving constructive feedback; focus on psychosocial aspects of family practice.

London - Dr. Walsh
She is the best! So eager to teach, very smart. very caring, a great role model.

Newbury
Good amount of responsibility in terms of patient care.
Exposure to rural emergency department, managing inpatients in a rural hospital in addition to the family clinic.
Good variety, representative of a rural family physician's practice, including office, emerg, and inpatient. Gives you a lot of responsibility in the emergency department which is where I felt I learned the most.
Legitimately wants your opinion when he asks about your findings, and management plan - that kind of responsibility makes you more involved and willing to learn.

Petrolia - Dr. Mather
Excellent and experienced teacher, very good at putting you at your ease, very encouraging, very flexable/accomodating to your learning goals.
VERY busy practice -- lots of interesting patients. You'll be the only learner in her practice -- lots of hands-on experience.
Very positive atmosphere. Office staff/other healthcare professionals in the practice are friendly and seem to like students.
She does lots of minor procedures (lumps & bumps, removals, joint injections, etc.).

Seaforth
Excellent variety of practice. Lots of hands on learning. Amazing preceptors and teachers.

Southampton - Dr. Billings
Excellent teacher, used down time in emergency department to do one on one lectures on topics like toxicology. Always patient with every patient, excellent rapport. Good interactions with allied health. Respected by co-workers and community.

Southampton - Dr. Suke
He is a great teacher and very pleasant to work with. I learned a lot. He also took the time to integrate teaching into every aspect of the day and I never felt like I was detracting from the clinic by asking questions. He also made sure I got a variety of experiences including going to the ER and OR.

St. Marys
Great preceptors with good clinical experience.
Busy clinic - lots of patients to see, with lots of opportunity for hands-on experience, such as doing punch biopsies and venopuncture. The staff (physicians and nurses) were all eager and willing to teach.
They were all great preceptors, all really good at teaching, both in clinic and in the emergency. I felt that they took the time to ask me at the end of each day/shift if I had any questions left about the cases I saw that day, which was a great learning opportunity. They identified key learning points about cases (i.e. asthma and what parents can do at home to change environment/decrease triggers, STEMIs and initial management) and made sure these were taught, even going the extra step of tailoring the teaching to my specialty of interest.

St. Thomas - Dr. Scott
Large variety of patient presentations. Great, enthusiastic consultants (even the consultants without students would come and get me for interesting cases). Excellent work environment. Very academic, up to date on latest developments.
Very enthusiastic, creates a great work environment, always interested and looking things up, willing to stay late to discuss patients. Taught me a lot about the business side of family medicine.

Strathroy - Dr. MacDonald
Great preceptors, great clinic/work setting and atmosphere. Allows student to have as much hands on experience as desired/ready for. Practice population is young, but was able to visit retirement home to see a broader scope to family practice.
I had a lot of hands on opportunities to do things like help with excisions, remove warts, give trochanteric injections.

Tavistock
It provides good exposure to working in a rural area, albeit a rural area with a number of hospitals in relatively close proximity. The physician's and staff were terrific, and it was good experience to work with Nurse Practitioners.
One of the biggest strengths of the clinic is the fact that you have the chance to work with 4 different physician's and NPs. The physicians are quite different from each other, so you learn different things working with each of them. As well, having the chance to work with the nurse practitioners, dietician and pharmacist was also helpful. It really gave me the chance to see how the different professions interact and the roles each of them play in patient care.

Thorndale
Dr. Chapeskie is a superb instructor/mentor. Great learning experience with exposure to wide range of topics in clinical medicine. While I had limited understanding of what a career in family med consisted of at the beginning, this rotation changed that significantly.
Lots and lots of one on one time with supervisor. Lots of clinical skills and procedures.
Excellent rotation, wonderfully accepting and exciting work environment.
Dr. Chapeskie gave me as much responsibility as I wanted, and I felt I learned a lot more when I got to see and manage some patients independently. He's also great at teaching technical skills and offers students the opportunity to do procedures (i.e. the Vandenbos procedure) that you wouldn't get to do anywhere else.
Really role models the old school physician who learned from his father. Involves you with his family and his whole life to really understand what it means to be a community physician.

Walkerton
Incredible variety (anaestesia, FM clinic, nursing home/jail visit, ER, surgery, inpatient internal medicine). This rotation really showcases the many opportunities for the family physician.
Great teacher. Awesome experience.

Wallaceburg
Wide variety of care settings: inpatient, clinic, emergency room, nursing home. Friendly staff at all sites and hands on experience with procedures. Option to see other specialties (ex: OB/GYN, pain clinic, optometrist).
Dr. Atoe is very friendly and will give you a lot of responsibility if you take initiative. There were lots of opportunities for hands on procedures including excisions, laceration repair, and casting.

Wingham
Lots of practical experience and opportunities for self-directed learning based on personal interest; community was very welcoming and friendly and provided a great learning environment. There was a wide variety of exposure to different areas.

Woodstock
Lots of independence. Wide range of patients with different problems.
Physicians, nurses and office staffs are very friendly. Patients are very friendly too. The community is also very friendly.
A lot of practice with management of clinical encounters common in the family medicine practice.
My preceptor allowed me to see patient on my own first, which allowed plenty of opportunity to practice interviewing and physical exam skills.
Outstandingly caring preceptor.

Accommodation/Community Testimonials

Clinton Accommodations:
I stayed at the Hen's Nest B&B in Clinton. The Schwindt's were extremely welcoming and helpful. They prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner for you each day and provide a nice friendly atmosphere where you can talk about your day and also learn a lot about them and their family. I was left to have my own quiet time at night but I also felt welcome to join them in whatever activity they had going on that evening. I don't believe anyone would have anything negative to say about these accommodations.

Hanover Accommodations:
Lovely accommodations were provided adjacent to the hospital, as well as a gym membership. Really excellent experience. Great hospital, friendly MDs and nurses, lunches and dinners free at cafeteria. Lots of exposure to ER, anaesthesia, obs/gyn too.

Newbury Accommodations:
if you plan on staying in town, you'll be staying with Mrs. Brewer who is the nicest woman you'll ever meet. The stay was wonderful.

Petrolia Accommodations:
Lovely little town, everything within walking distance (grocery store, hospital, even pretty Victorian-era downtown and library); fantastic accommodations at a beautiful bed and breakfast (and the breakfasts were awesome!) with very friendly and agreeable hosts. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.

Southampton Accommodations:
Accommodations were amazing. Three bedroom condo that was brand new. They cleaned every other week. It was a 2 min drive to the hospital or a 10 min walk. A great tiny community right next to the beach. The condo where students stay is superb! Everyone at the clinic is super nice and I had no difficulties with anything I needed. The town is very cute and has an awesome bakery.

Tavistock Accommodations:
Stayed at bed and breakfast with a lovely couple. The room was a large basement apartment with a fridge, tv, shower (with heated floors), leather couch and chair and desk. Wireless internet. The hosts were fantastic, very personable and professional.

Wallaceburg Accommodations:
Conveniently located across the street from the hospital. You stay with the family physician's retired office manager - very nice people. Breakfast provided.

Academic Centre Preceptor Testimonials