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Saint John - Family Medicine - Palliative Care

Dalhousie UniversitySaint John, New BrunswickCompetitive stream

Enhanced skills (FM/ES) match

Family medicine residents applying for a PGY-3 year (the "+1").

At a glance

Approx. quota
1 position
Length
1 year
Applications per year
0–50
Offered interviews
76–100%

Competitive stream · open to Canadian and international medical graduates

Interviews

2 dates, 19–20 Oct 2026virtual

Saint John, 3 teaching sites · required rural rotation

A car is recommended

CaRMS program page(opens in a new tab)

What stands out about this program

  • Required 2-4 week Palliative and Therapeutic Harmonization (PATH) rotation within the geriatrics service.

    From “Program highlights” on the CaRMS page

  • Mileage reimbursed for all core rotations, including home visits across the Saint John and Sussex regions.

    From “Training sites” on the CaRMS page

  • This one-year family medicine enhanced skills program in palliative care leads to eligibility for the CFPC Certificate of Added Competence in Palliative Care.
  • Training is based at Saint John Regional Hospital and includes service in the Sussex, New Brunswick region.
  • Residents travel to Halifax for pediatric palliative care at IWK Health Centre and a PATH geriatrics rotation at QEII Health Sciences Centre.
  • A scholarly project is required, and call is taken from home.

The summary is written by CdnMD from the program’s CaRMS description.

Based on what the program says about itself.

  • You’re open to training at sites across a region, not at one hospital.
    Show the quote

    as a residency program with distributed sites, residents will complete a minimum of eight (8) weeks outside of the Halifax area, usually in New Brunswick.

Not a ranking.

What training looks like

Setting
  • Regional community
  • Academic / tertiary hospital
  • Rural / remote
Rural exposure
Required rural rotation
Research
Required · scholarly or quality-improvement project
Getting around
  • A car is recommended
  • Travel is reimbursed

By year

Not stated on CaRMS page

Other rotations

Listed by the program without a single year.

  • Palliative Care (30-32 weeks)
  • Pediatrics (2 weeks · IWK Health Centre, Halifax, NS.)
  • Palliative and Therapeutic Harmonization (Geriatrics) (2-4 weeks · QEII Health Sciences Centre, Halifax, NS)
  • Oncology (4 weeks · Saint John Regional Hospital)
  • Electives (12 weeks · Location to be determined)

✓ = the CaRMS page states it; – = not stated. From the program description and its rotation list.

Where you train

Saint John, New Brunswick: 3 teaching sites; required rural rotation. A car is recommended.

  • Saint John Regional Hospital
  • IWK Health Centre (Halifax)
  • QEII Health Sciences Centre (Halifax)

Distributed across a region

Record systems at the listed sites: Oracle Health (Cerner) at 1 of 3; no published record for 2.

Hospital facts

3 sites · public figures and clinical record systems where they are published

Public figures for hospitals named above, each with its source and reference period. They describe the hospital, not the program. We match names to the sources by name, so check each source before you rely on it.

How to read the figures

  • Hospital type. As the province lists it. The list has no volumes or beds.

Saint John Regional Hospital

Matched to Saint John Regional Hospital / Hôpital Régional de Saint John (Saint John) in the province’s hospital list.

Inpatient beds
445 As listed in the province’s dataset, whose rows were last updated 24 Apr 2019; the count may be older.

IWK Health Centre

Clinical record
Oracle Health (One Person One Record), fully electronic record since Dec 2025 As of 31 Oct 2026

Matched to IWK Health Centre (Halifax) in the province’s hospital list.

Hospital type
Tertiary

QEII Health Sciences Centre

This name covers 2 hospitals in the province’s lists. Each is shown on its own, A to Z, and the numbers are never added together.

QEII - Halifax Infirmary Site (Halifax)
Hospital type
Tertiary
QEII - Victoria General (VG) Site (Halifax)
Hospital type
Tertiary

Verify with the official source: each source button opens the publisher’s own page.

Sources and licences

  • Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – New Brunswick.
  • Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – Nova Scotia.

About Saint John

  • People

    69,895residents, 2021 Census

    Municipality of Saint John

  • Housing

    2.1%rental vacancy rate

    October 2025 survey, Saint John, New Brunswick (census metropolitan area)

  • Winter and summer

    −7.9 °CJanuary mean17.3 °CJuly mean

    1991–2020 normals, Saint John, 15.5 km away

  • Job outlook

    not published for this specialty

More about Saint John (its page: housing, getting around, weather, things to do, and every program that names it)

Sites as the program’s CaRMS page lists them. City figures are public statistics for the place named by the location; they describe the place, not the program.

How they choose

Application file components
  • CV
  • Electives
  • Examinations
  • Extra-curricular
  • Leadership skills
  • MSPRs
  • Personal letters
  • Reference documents
  • Research/Publications
  • Transcripts
Return of service
Not stated on CaRMS page

Application file components as the program describes them.

Interviews and info sessions

Interview dates (FM/ES 2027 match)
19 and 20 Oct 2026
Format
Virtual
  • Panel

Interview dates and format are as the program wrote them.

Pay and call

Provincial scale, last updated 24 Jul 2026 · check the current agreement(opens in a new tab). One provincial scale for Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, set by the resident agreement, so every program there pays the same. Showing PGY-3, the level FM/ES residents usually start at. Yours depends on your training so far.

Annual salary by PGY level, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island
LevelAnnual salary
PGY-3
$89,462 / year

How provincial pay and rent compare

Call

Call (as the program states it)
Home call
Call (provincial max)
1 night in 4 in-house
Post-call rule (provincial)
No work required once handover is completed
Max continuous duty (provincial)
Handover begins by the 24th consecutive hour on duty

The union agreement’s limits and rules for all residents in the province; your program’s actual call schedule may be lighter. MarDocs agreement, 1 Jul 2024 to 30 Jun 2027. Read as of 1 Oct 2026.

Benefits

13 lines as listed by CaRMS in 2022–2024: Annual vacation, Call stipend, CMPA dues paid, and more
Annual vacation
4 weeks
Call stipend
Yes
CMPA dues paid
Yes
Dental coverage
Yes
Educational leave
Yes
Extended health insurance
Yes
Life insurance
$100,000 of insurance
Long-term disabilityinsurance
66.7% of salary
Maternity leave top up after one year’s service
eligible for up to a maximum of 17 weeks top-up allowance for maternity/pregnancy leave
Provincial dues (% of salary)
1.30%
Provincial health insurance
Yes
Sick leave
Yes
Statutory and floating holidays
paid

Contacts and links

Program director

  • Dr. Robin Grant

CaRMS lists no email for the director.

Program office

Enhanced Skills Program Administrator

Write to the officefmes@dal.ca

Per CaRMS. Staff change during the cycle, so check the CaRMS program page(opens in a new tab) before emailing. Site staff and other contacts are listed there too.

Dalhousie Enhanced Skills - Palliative Care (PALL)(opens in a new tab)This program on CaRMS(opens in a new tab)

Family Medicine - Palliative Care elsewhere

Nearest to Saint John

Source

The program’s CaRMS page (opens in a new tab) · FM/ES 2027 match · last approved 27 Jul 2026.

Accredited · CaRMS program ID 34568 · How these pages are made ›

The Applications per year and Offered interviews figures are 5-year averages the program reports to CaRMS: past cycles, not your odds.

Independent. Not affiliated with CaRMS or the program. Programs edit their descriptions during the match; confirm on carms.ca (opens in a new tab) before you apply. Data last updated on CdnMD 8 Oct 2026.

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