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St. John's - General Surgery

Memorial University of NewfoundlandSt. John's, Newfoundland and LabradorCMG stream

At a glance

Approx. quota
4 positions
Length
5 years
Applications per year
51–200
Offered interviews
51–75%

CMG stream · open to Canadian medical graduates

Return of service: Not required · this stream

Interviews

2 dates, 29–30 Jan 2027virtual

St. John's, 5 teaching sites

Program website(opens in a new tab)CANPREPP profile(opens in a new tab)CaRMS program page(opens in a new tab)

What stands out about this program

  • Two three-block community surgery rotations in PGY 4 and PGY 5, aimed at preparing community surgeons.

    From “Program highlights” on the CaRMS page

  • Required trauma rotation at Sunnybrook in Toronto during PGY 2.

    From “Training sites” on the CaRMS page

  • This is a five-year General Surgery program at Memorial University, with most compulsory rotations at two adult hospitals and a pediatric hospital in St. John's.
  • Residents complete two Community Surgery rotations, in PGY 4 and PGY 5, usually in Carbonear, Corner Brook, Grand Falls-Windsor or Charlottetown.
  • A PGY 2 trauma rotation takes place at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto.

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

What training looks like

Setting
  • Academic / tertiary hospital
  • Regional community
Rural exposure
Not stated on CaRMS page
Focus areas
  • Early independence
Research
Offered · research project · protected time
Getting around
  • Housing away from the home site is provided or paid for

By year

PGY-1
  • EmergencyHealth Sciences Centre/St. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL.1
  • Plastic SurgeryHealth Sciences Centre, St. John's, NL.1
  • General SurgeryHealth Sciences Centre (Acute Care Service), St. John's, NL.3
  • General SurgerySt. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL.3
  • ICUSt. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL.1
  • MedicineSt. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL.1
  • Pediatric SurgeryJaneway Children's Hospital, St. John's, NL.1
  • Vascular SurgerySt. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL.2
PGY-2
  • Ambulatory ClinicsSt. John's, NL.1
  • General SurgerySt. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL.3
  • ICUHealth Sciences Centre, St. John's, NL.2
  • EndoscopyHealth Sciences Centre/St. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL3
  • TraumaSunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Toronto, Ont.1
  • General SurgeryHealth Sciences Centre (Team B), St. John's, NL.3
PGY-3
  • Thoracic SurgerySt. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL.2
  • Pediatric SurgeryJaneway Children's Hospital, St. John's, NL.3
  • General SurgeryHealth Sciences Centre (Acute Care Service Team), St. John's, NL.3
  • General SurgerySt. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL3
  • ResearchSt. John's, NL1
  • ElectiveResidents' choice1
PGY-4
  • Community SurgeryCarbonear, Corner Brook or Grand Falls-Windsor, NL; Charlottetown, PEI. Other sites may be arranged.3
  • ElectiveResidents' choice3
  • EndoscopySt. John's, NL.1
  • General SurgeryHealth Sciences Centre (Team A), St. John's, NL.3
  • Head and NeckSt. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL.2
  • ResearchSt. John's, NL.1
PGY-5
  • Community SurgeryCarbonear, Corner Brook or Grand Falls-Windsor, NL; Charlottetown, PEI. Other sites may be arranged.3
  • General SurgeryHealth Sciences Centre/St. Clare's Mercy Hospital, St. John's, NL.10

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

Where you train

St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador: 5 teaching sites.

  • Health Sciences Centre - General Hospital
  • St. Clare's Mercy Hospital
  • Janeway Children's Health and Rehabilitation Centre
  • Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (Toronto)
  • Saint John Regional Hospital (Saint John)

Record systems at the listed sites: CorCare at 2 of 5, Oracle Health (Cerner) at 1; no published record for 2.

Moving to a new system: Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre (scheduled 2027).

Hospital facts

4 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.

Clinical record
CorCare, fully electronic record since Apr 2026 As of 31 Oct 2026. At Health Sciences Centre - General Hospital, St. Clare's Mercy Hospital.

Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre

Clinical record
Oracle Health, moving to a new system, scheduled 2027 As of 31 Oct 2026

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.

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

For the other sites: Newfoundland and Labrador doesn't publish this as open data.

Sources and licences

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

About St. John's

  • People

    110,525residents, 2021 Census

    Municipality of St. John's

  • Housing

    2.1%rental vacancy rate

    October 2025 survey, St

  • Winter and summer

    −3.6 °CJanuary mean16.5 °CJuly mean

    1991–2020 normals, St. John's (West), 4.3 km away

  • Job outlook

    Very goodfor the specialty here, 2025–2027

More about St. John's (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 required · this stream

Application file components as the program describes them.

Interviews and info sessions

Interview dates (2027 match)
29 and 30 Jan 2027
Format
Virtual
  • Traditional (one on one/two on one)

Info sessions

The 1 session listed for 2027 has passed.

18 General Surgery info sessions at other programsAll info sessions

From the program’s CaRMS page (opens in a new tab), read 20 Oct 2026; a row tagged CANPREPP is on CANPREPP’s events calendar (read 24 Oct 2026), alone or as well. Dates and times are as the program wrote them. Programs add and change sessions.

Pay and call

Provincial scale, last updated 23 Jul 2026 · check the current agreement(opens in a new tab). Contract expired, may change. One provincial scale for Newfoundland and Labrador, set by the resident agreement, so every program there pays the same. Showing the 5 levels this program covers.

Annual salary by PGY level, Newfoundland and Labrador
LevelAnnual salary
PGY-1
$69,175 / year
PGY-2
$74,779 / year
PGY-3
$79,848 / year
PGY-4
$85,137 / year
PGY-5
$90,868 / year

How provincial pay and rent compare

Call

Call (provincial max)
1 day in 4 in-house, on average
Post-call rule (provincial)
May be relieved at 10:00 on the next regular work day, after handover, when call involved continuous or intensive care
Max continuous duty (provincial)
No new responsibilities after the 24th hour of duty, apart from handover

The union agreement’s limits and rules for all residents in the province; your program’s actual call schedule may be lighter. PARNL agreement, 10 Aug 2022 to 30 Jun 2024. The term has ended; its terms continue until a new agreement is signed. Read as of 1 Oct 2026.

Benefits

12 lines as listed by CaRMS in 2022–2024: Additional optional benefits, Annual vacation, CMPA dues, and more
Additional optional benefits
100% employee paid
Annual vacation
4 weeks/year
CMPA dues
100% reimbursement
Conference leave
7 days/pd
Extended health insurance
Mandatory medical, basic life and AD&Dhttp://www.exec.gov.nl.ca/exec/hrs/working_with_us/employee_benefits.html
Maternity/Paternity leave
Up to One year
Meal allowance
$105 per month
Parking fees
$5/year
Provincial health insurance
Contact Medical Care Plan1-866-449-4459
Resident Student
Full-time status
Sick leave
1 day per month
Statutory holidays
1-1/2 x pay or paid day off

Past matches

No repeated vacancies in CaRMS’s lists of open positions, 2019–2026.

Positions at this site, all streams.

What this means

  • A position can go unfilled because of where the site is, because it is open to IMGs only or to another restricted stream, or because the quota changed late.
  • It says nothing about the quality of the training or how heavy the workload is.
  • A site’s numbers are shown when it had positions open after round 1 in at least 2 of 8 years or at least 3 in one year.

Source: CaRMS’s lists of positions open after round 1 and after round 2, as read in October 2026 (latest: 2026 round 1 (CaRMS PDF, opens in a new tab), 2026 round 2 (CaRMS PDF, opens in a new tab)).

Year by year

2027 match

The 2027 match, one row per stream (scrolls sideways on narrow screens)
StreamPositionsLengthInterviewsWhat changed
CMG stream45 years2 dates, 29–30 Jan 2027VirtualNothing noted

2026 match

The 2026 match, one row per stream (scrolls sideways on narrow screens)
StreamPositionsLengthInterviews
CMG stream45 years30–31 Jan 2026, listed as a range
The 2026 page of the CMG stream: our summary of its CaRMS description
  • Memorial University's General Surgery Residency is a five-year Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) program designed to produce broadly-trained surgeons prepared for community practice.
  • The program offers comprehensive training across various surgical disciplines, with a focus on developing competent specialists capable of assuming consultant roles in General Surgery.
Research
One dedicated research block in PGY-3 and PGY-4, with opportunities to develop surgical research skills
Training setting
Urban medical center training in St. John's, Newfoundland, with rotations at multiple hospitals including Health Sciences Centre, St. Clare's Mercy Hospital, and Janeway Children's Hospital. Community rotations available in Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island.
Teaching approach
Provide exceptional clinical surgery training with flexibility to develop surgical scientists, using Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) approach with progressive independence and comprehensive supervision.
Enhanced skills
Not stated on CaRMS page
What the program looked at
  • Medical Student Performance Record (MSPR)
  • Reference letters
  • Personal letter
  • CV/Résumé
  • Interview performance

Positions, length and interviews as each match’s CaRMS pages stated them; what changed from our comparison of the two matches and our readings of the 2027 pages.

Contacts and links

Program director
Program office

Program Administrator

Write to the officesurgicaleducation@mun.ca

Per CaRMS. Staff change during the cycle, so check the CaRMS program page(opens in a new tab) before emailing.

Program websiteWebsiteCANPREPPCANPREPPincludes a resident experience sectionFrom the programThis program on CaRMS(opens in a new tab)

Videos and podcasts

From the program

Public podcast episodes and videos where the program presents itself. The short descriptions are ours; each link goes to the original.

These are public recordings, reviewed by hand and linked here, not endorsed. They may be out of date. Confirm with the program.

All videos, podcasts and discussions →

General Surgery elsewhere

Nearest to St. John's

  • Halifax - General SurgeryDalhousie University

    Halifax, NS · 897 km

    5 positions · CMG

  • Montreal - General SurgeryMcGill University

    Montreal, QC · 1,607 km

    4 positions · Regular

    Bilingual
  • Ottawa - Bilingual - General SurgeryUniversity of Ottawa

    Ottawa - Bilingual, ON · 1,769 km

    1 position · CMG

    Bilingual
In these collections:

Source

The program’s CaRMS page (opens in a new tab) · 2027 match · last approved 8 Sep 2026 · not final until file review opens 26 November; as of 19 Oct 2026, re-checked every two weeks.

Accredited · CaRMS program ID 36177 · How these pages are made › · See the 2026 match under Year by year

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 24 Oct 2026.

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