Waterloo - Psychiatry

McMaster UniversityWaterloo, OntarioIMG stream

Program websiteWebsite4 more links

Open on carms.ca

CaRMS program description, 2026 match, last approved 8 Oct 2025

From the 2026 match (R-1 2026). See the 2027 version

Positions (approx. quota): 1 position
Length: 5 years
Stream: IMG
Discipline: Psychiatry
Applications per year: 51–200
Applicants offered interviews: 0–25%
Accreditation: Accredited
CaRMS program ID: 30320

Bands are 5-year averages the program reports to CaRMS. They describe past cycles, not your odds.

Summary

The McMaster Psychiatry Postgraduate Program at the Waterloo Regional Campus aims to train psychiatrists who can work effectively in community hospitals and outpatient settings, with a focus on providing care for marginalized and vulnerable populations. The program offers comprehensive training across various clinical settings, emphasizing the development of clinical skills, psychotherapy expertise, and a commitment to equity and diversity.

Training

Research

Residents can pursue research through elective blocks, longitudinal research time, and the Clinician Investigator Program (CIP), with opportunities to complete graduate degrees concurrently with residency.

Training setting

Training occurs in various community-based locations in the Waterloo region, including primary care hospitals, community programs, and multiple clinical sites such as Grand River Hospital, Guelph General Hospital, and Homewood Health Centre.

Teaching approach

A flexible, responsive training approach that emphasizes Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME), self-directed learning, scholarly inquiry, and principles of adult learning with a focus on progressive skill development.

Setting types

Community hospital
Academic medical center
Outpatient clinics
Rural healthcare settings

Focus areas

Community Psychiatry
Marginalized Populations
Rural Medicine
Psychotherapy
Mental Health Care
Collaborative Care
Global Mental Health
Indigenous Mental Health

Patient populations

Marginalized populations
Vulnerable populations
Indigenous communities
Refugees and immigrants
Patients with severe and persistent mental illness
Child and adolescent patients
Geriatric patients
Patients with addiction disorders

Highlights

One Room Schoolhouse academic learning model
Robust psychotherapy training
Resident wellness curriculum
Individualized training experiences
Strong support for scholarship
Clinician Investigator Program (CIP)
Concurrent graduate program opportunities
Pairing IMG residents with Academic Coach and Peer Mentors

Strengths

Comprehensive psychotherapy training
Strong community-based training model
Emphasis on equity, diversity, and inclusion
Flexible and responsive curriculum
Robust research opportunities
Experienced and dedicated faculty
Multiple subspecialty training options

Enhanced skills

Clinical Investigator Program
Graduate program opportunities
Psychotherapy training
Global Mental Health
Clinician Educator Program

By year

PGY-1

Emergency Psychiatry4 weeks
Internal MedicineBlocks not specified
Family MedicineBlocks not specified
NeurologyBlocks not specified
Emergency MedicineBlocks not specified
AddictionsBlocks not specified

PGY-2

General Adult Inpatient Psychiatry5.5-6 blocks
General Adult Outpatient Psychiatry5.5-6 blocks
Anchored Selective1 block
Inpatient Substance Use Consultation ServiceHamilton Campus2 weeks

PGY-3

Child & Adolescent Psychiatry6 blocks
Geriatric Psychiatry6 blocks
Emergency PsychiatryLongitudinal

PGY-4

Chronic Care Psychiatry6 blocks
Elective4 blocks
Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry3 blocks

PGY-5

Elective10 blocks
Collaborative Care3 blocks

From the program's rotation list.

Selection

What the program looks at

MCCQE Part I
NAC examination
Medical school transcript
Medical Student Performance Record
Personal letter
Reference letters
CV/Résumé

Applications per year

51–200

Applicants offered interviews

0–25%

Interviews

Dates (2026 match): 19 and 22 Jan 2026

Programs can change interview dates. Confirm on carms.ca.

Pay

Provincial scale, last updated 6 Jan 2025 · check the current agreement(opens in a new tab)

Contract expired, may change.

Annual salary by PGY level, Ontario
Level	Annual salary
PGY-1	$73,367 / year
PGY-2	$79,670 / year
PGY-3	$85,564 / year
PGY-4	$92,701 / year
PGY-5	$98,567 / year

One provincial scale for Ontario, set by the resident agreement, so every program there pays the same. Showing the 5 levels this program covers.

Call

Call (provincial max): 7 nights in 28 in-house

The union agreement’s cap for all residents in the province; your program’s actual call schedule may be lighter. Check with the program.

PARO agreement, 1 Jul 2023 to 30 Jun 2026. The term has ended; its terms continue until a new agreement is signed.

Teaching sites

Grand River Hospital
Guelph General Hospital
Homewood Health Centre
Cambridge Memorial Hospital

Hospital facts

Hospital size and activity: Ontario doesn't publish this as open data.

Unfilled positions in past years

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

Positions at this site, all streams.

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. Verify with the CaRMS lists. 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)). 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.

Contacts

Contacts weren't collected for the 2026 match.

The current program director and contacts are on the 2027 version of this program and on the CaRMS program page(opens in a new tab).

Location

Waterloo, Ontario

About the city

Public statistics for the place named by this program’s location label, each with its source and reference period. They describe the place, not the program, and are not a ranking. Check each source before you rely on it.

Climate

Canadian Climate Normals, 1991–2020. Each value comes from the nearest weather station that reports it, not from the city itself.

January average: −6.3 °C Kitchener/Waterloo, 13.5 km away
July average: 20.2 °C Kitchener/Waterloo, 13.5 km away
Snowfall: 114.5 cm a year Toronto Pearson (Airport), 76.9 km away (more than 50 km, so it may differ from the city)
Days below −20 °C: 6.5 days a year Kitchener/Waterloo, 13.5 km away

People

2021 Census. Figures are for the municipality of Waterloo, not the metropolitan area. Statistics Canada rounds counts, so small places are approximate.

Population: 121,436 people up 15.7% from 2016
Official languages: English only 89.6% · French only 0.0% · English and French 8.6% · neither 1.7% Share of residents who can conduct a conversation in each. This is not the language spoken at home.
Immigrants: 27.5% of residents arrived 2016–2021: 5.6% · non-permanent residents: 8.7%
Indigenous identity: 1.3% of residents
How people commute: car, truck or van 83.9% · public transit 6.5% · walking or cycling 6.9% · other 2.7% Average commute: 20.8 minutes. Shares are of people who commute.The way Canadians commute was altered in 2021 by the pandemic, with lockdowns to slow the spread of COVID-19 and changes in how and where Canadians worked leading to 2.8 million fewer commuters, compared with five years earlier. Statistics Canada, The Daily, 30 Nov 2022(opens in a new tab)
Median household income: $94,000 before tax $82,000 after tax · income year 2020, in 2020 dollars

Rural and remote

This describes the place named by the program’s location label. Programs can train in several towns, so it is not every site.

Population centre: Kitchener, a large urban population centre (100,000 or more people) 522,888 people in 2021
Remoteness index: 0.083 0 is least remote, 1 is most remote. Statistics Canada calls this index experimental.

Housing, cost and work

Each figure names the area it covers. A missing line means the source publishes nothing for this area.

Rental vacancy rate: 4.0% October 2025 survey, Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Ontario (census metropolitan area). The share of purpose-built rentals (three units and over) vacant, not a rent.
Basic cost of living: $55,434 a year Market Basket Measure 2025, Ontario, population 500,000 and over, for two adults with two children. A modest, basic basket (the poverty line), not a resident’s budget. A size-class region is not the town itself.
Unemployment rate: 7.7% September 2026, three-month average, seasonally adjusted, Kitchener-Cambridge-Waterloo, Ontario (census metropolitan area); standard error 0.8 points. A survey estimate.

Job outlook

Employment and Social Development Canada’s rating for the occupation in the economic region. It is not a count of jobs, and says nothing about CaRMS positions or your match.

Outlook, 2025–2027: Good The employment outlook will be Good for specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine (NOC 31100) in the Kitchener - Waterloo - Barrie region for the 2025-2027 period.
Canada-wide, to 2033: Strong risk of Shortage ESDC’s projection for specialists in clinical and laboratory medicine, 2024–2033. Recent conditions, 2021–2023: Strong signs of Shortage.

Sources and licences

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada. Adapted from Statistics Canada, 2021 Census Cartographic Boundary Files.
Adapted from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Rental Market Survey, October 2025 (vacancy rates), and Statistics Canada, Table 34-10-0130-01. This does not constitute an endorsement by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation or Statistics Canada of this product.
Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada (Employment and Social Development Canada, Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS), 2024 to 2033 projections).
Data Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada (Canadian Climate Normals 1991-2020).
Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada (Employment and Social Development Canada, 3-Year Employment Outlooks).
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Index of Remoteness (17-26-0001), 2021. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 14-10-0459-01 Labour force characteristics by census metropolitan area, three-month moving average, seasonally adjusted, reference month 2026-09. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 11-10-0066-01 Market Basket Measure (MBM) thresholds for the reference family by Market Basket Measure region, component and base year, 2025. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 98-10-0011-01 Population and dwelling counts: Canada and population centres, 2021 Census. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 98-10-0002-01 Population and dwelling counts: Canada and census subdivisions (municipalities), 2021 Census. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 98-10-0057-01 Household income statistics by household type: Canada, provinces and territories, census divisions and census subdivisions, 2021 Census. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 98-10-0173-01 Mother tongue by knowledge of official languages: Canada, provinces and territories, census divisions and census subdivisions, 2021 Census. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 98-10-0266-01 Indigenous identity by Registered or Treaty Indian status: Canada, provinces and territories, census divisions and census subdivisions, 2021 Census. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 98-10-0307-01 Immigrant status and period of immigration by place of birth: Canada, provinces and territories, census divisions and census subdivisions, 2021 Census. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.
Adapted from Statistics Canada, Table 98-10-0458-01 Main mode of commuting by commuting duration, time leaving for work, age and gender: Canada, provinces and territories, census divisions and census subdivisions, 2021 Census. This does not constitute an endorsement by Statistics Canada of this product.

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 5 Oct 2026.