Island Medical Program - University of Victoria

Medical Sciences Building at UVic, home of the Island Medical Program

The Island Medical Program at the University of Victoria is a program created by the province to increase the number of new physicians on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.

The University of British Columbia's Faculty of Medicine, in collaboration with the University of Northern British Columbia (UNBC) , the University of Victoria (UVic) and the provincial government, launched its innovative, distributed medical education program in September 2004. Medical training in BC is now distributed across three sites: the Island Medical Program (IMP) at UVic, the Northern Medical Program (NMP) at UNBC, and the Vancouver-Fraser Medical Program (VFMP) at UBC. An additional site, the Okanagan Medical Program (OMP), is expected to commence in 2009 and contribute 30 additional seats to UBC's medical class.

IMP students are based in the Medical Sciences Building at UVic. Students at all three sites (IMP, NMP and VFMP) follow identical curriculum and are linked through sophisticated audiovisual and e-learning technology for simultaneous, interactive learning.

All students in the IMP are fully registered with the UBC Faculty of Medicine and will receive UBC degrees. While at UVic, students in the IMP have affiliate status, granting them access to all services provided to any UVic student. IMP students spend the first four months of their undergraduate medical program at UBC in Vancouver and then move to Victoria to complete their degree requirements. During the more clinical third and fourth years of the program, students have the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time in hospital and community-based clinical settings within the Vancouver Island Health Authority. After successfully completing the four-year MD undergraduate program, graduates enter residency training across Canada and beyond in one of over 50 specialty areas. Post-graduate training ranges from two to six years.

All applications for the Island Medical Program are processed through the UBC MD Undergraduate Program Admissions office. Currently, twenty-four students are accepted into the IMP annually.

IMP is linked with other health science programs offered at University of Victoria:

Nursing
Social Work
Psychology
Health Information Science
Centre on Aging
Centre for Addictions Research of British Columbia
Centre for Biomedical Research

Admissions targets for the combined programs:^[1]

200 in 2004, VFMP: 152 IMP: 24 NMP: 24
224 in 2005, VFMP: 176 IMP: 24 NMP: 24
256 in 2007, VFMP: 192 IMP: 32 NMP: 32
286 in 2009, VFMP: 192 IMP: 32 NMP: 32 OMP: 30

The program consists of four years of studies:

Year 1 and 2 - general sciences or Foundations of Medicine. All classes for students in the IMP and NMP in the first term of the program are held at UBC's campus in Vancouver with the rest of the students in the VFMP.
Year 3 and 4 - Clinical
Year 4 - advanced clerkship, residency and Resident Matching Service (CaRMs) match

Famous Students

Mark Lipsett - Major Advances in Diabetes Research.
Jamie Loh - Developed the Smallpox Vaccine.
Brian Yong - Championed the DRE technique for detection of Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia.
Jeff Campbell - Developed the Acid Fast Stain.
Angela Lin - First identified schistocytes in Microangiopathic Hemolytic Anemia.
Chelsea Greenwood - Developed hybrid car technology.
JJ Hamilton - Jedi Master.