How Queen's is building the next generation of family doctors

Feature Stories | 10 Nov 2026 | Read time: 4 min | Written by: Mary Beth Gauthier

When students in the Queen’s–Lakeridge Health MD Family Medicine Program talk about their training, a common theme shines through. Having the chance to work side-by-side with a family doctor and hearing directly from patients is a rich learning experience that reinforces their decision to pursue family medicine.

“I hope to eventually work in a community just like the one I’m placed in now, where family doctors do comprehensive care in the clinic, hospitals and in the community,” says third-year student Sathya Aithal, referring to his placement in Cobourg. “Being a family doctor is unique in that you are a generalist, but you get to practice everything you’ve learned in medical school on a day-to-day basis.”

Launched in 2023 as the first program of its kind in Canada, the Queen’s-Lakeridge Health MD Family Medicine Program (MDFM Program) is a purpose-built partnership designed to train family doctors. Students are placed with community family doctors within weeks of starting medical school, and learn in small groups, with a focused curriculum taught by practicing family physicians. The inaugural class will graduate as MDs in May 2027. Many have committed to entering the expanded Queen’s-Bowmanville-Oshawa-Lakeridge (QBOL) family medicine residency program right afterwards, to complete their training in Durham Region.

The QBOL program has been in place for more than a decade, and is highly sought after by prospective residents. Building on its success, the program will expand significantly in 2027 to welcome the Queen’s–Lakeridge Health MD Family Medicine Program graduates.

The retention of learners from MD to residency in the QBOL program is not something that is happening by accident. The chance to practice from day one may be what keeps those students wanting to become family doctors. “I always tell my students that I didn’t know that the work would get better and better the longer you’re in it because of the relationships you form with patients,” says Dr. Natasha Aziz, the program’s director of curriculum and a family physician who runs a practice in Durham Region.

A curriculum built around community practice

For students, having these clinical placements helps build confidence and competence. “One of the big differentiating factors of this program and something the students are really excited about is learning in clinical settings from the start,” says Dr. Lynn Hiemstra, a family doctor in the Durham Region and the program’s pre-clerkship director. “They are doing lectures and small groups and then in their clinical rotations they are seeing it in practice and that just reinforces what they're learning.”

The success of this approach is evident when students get to years three and four of the program, the phase known as clerkship. “The feedback we’re getting from preceptors is that the students are very well prepared and generally quite strong in clinical settings. They are comfortable talking with patients, taking a history, that sort of thing. To some extent they are operating almost at a resident level,” Dr. Hiemstra says.

For fourth-year student Liam Rautu, the program’s practical focus has reinforced a career decision. “I am continuing with family medicine in residency. I love the flexibility. You can do full, comprehensive care five days a week and see a variety of patients and develop long-term relationships that are very rewarding. But you can also branch out and do things outside of the clinic in emergency rooms or as a hospitalist.”

Rural and urban breadth

Yousef Safar sitting at a desk in a medical clinic setting — *Third-year student, Yousef Safar, taking a break during a clinic placement.*

The Durham Region’s geography and Lakeridge Health’s system of hospitals brings students to different sizes and resources of practice. For Yousef Safar, third-year student, a rural placement was eye-opening. “It was a tremendous experience because you really see the scope of what a rural physician does. You get to work in the family clinic, emergency, hospital, and also do some palliative care visits. It’s a bit of everything.” Those varied experiences teach lessons about what family physicians do that are often overlooked in classrooms and textbooks.

“A lot of this work isn’t as medical as we think it is,” says Safar. “It’s more social and interpersonal. If I can't offer something medically, especially in my first few years, at the very least I can offer compassion and care. That can also be a form of medicine.” Faculty see those relationships as a key retention factor for the specialty.

Two milestones and a promise

Staff, faculty, and students share in the excitement for the first cohort’s upcoming graduation. At the same time, the university has acquired a property, from the City of Oshawa, with plans to build a facility that will serve as the home for the university’s medical education programs in the region. These milestones signal that Queen’s and Lakeridge Health are committed to continuing to offer innovative medical education in the region, with an eye to expanding these programs in the future.

For the students themselves, the experience has already shaped both expectations and commitments. “I’m blessed to be in this program and to get to do this work,” Safar says. For faculty and community physicians, the program has offered a way to use their daily work to train the next generation. “It’s nice to be able to help in a bigger way through education so it can hopefully improve the supply of family doctors in our area,” Dr. Aziz says.

Read time

4 min

Written by

Mary Beth Gauthier