Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Residency Program

Are you a medical student interested in applying to the Calgary PM&R Residency Program? Click below for more information.

Assistant Director: Dr. Rebecca Charbonneau

Program Administrator:  Daphne Bates

Phone (403) 944-2061 Email: daphne.bates@ahs.ca

Number of PGY-1 CaRMS positions per year: 3 
Accreditation: Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada 
Length of Training: 5 years

The University of Calgary Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R) Residency Training Program strives to provide excellent educational experiences to both undergraduate and postgraduate learners. We recognize the unique privilege and responsibility of training the next generation of physiatrists, and are excited to continue to improve upon the training we provide. 

The PM&R residency program has been based on a Competence by Design (CBD) curriculum since July 2020. As a result of this major shift in medical education, residents are engaged in PM&R rotations earlier and there is timely and specific feedback to the trainees and faculty. We are constantly looking to improve in our curriculum planning, career development opportunities and tailored and individualized training experiences for our residents. Our residents are now fully in CBD training for the entirety of our program. We are undertaking great efforts to ensure they are well-supported for this, writing their royal college examinations in PGY-4, as well as with the development of the new Transition To Practice stage of CBD residency. 

We are thrilled to continue many of our program’s activities in-person and maintaining sectional wellbeing and morale. This includes on-site and interactive academic half days, journal club events, simulations, wellness retreats, our annual sectional retreat, and social events, including the year-end section event. We continue to facilitate province-wide monthly Alberta Physiatry Rounds and Alberta Physiatry Association annual meetings in collaboration with the University of Alberta. Furthermore, we have recently increased the capacity of our residency program, and are now accepting three residents per year via the CaRMS application match system. 

In addition to the training of physiatry residents, the Section of PM&R continues to provide support to the University of Calgary medical school as they have embarked on a new RIME curriculum. In particular, Dr. Vithya Gnanakumar is heavily involved in new course content creation, and many of our staff teach in anatomy, clinical core and career coaching of medical students. Furthermore, we have had a plethora of new fellowship programs in cancer rehabilitation, brain injury rehabilitation, stroke rehabilitation, and ongoing collaboration to support neuromuscular fellowships. We are also working on a pediatric fellowship program. Dr. Gentson Leung is our fellowship director who plays a major part in establishing and maintaining these fellowship programs. 

Our residents continue to demonstrate a balance of academic productivity in areas of clinical research and quality improvement projects. Our PGY-4 resident Dr. Scott Moorman (winner - best completed project) was recently awarded at the Alberta Physiatry Association Research Day for their work. The use of simulation as a teaching and educational tool is growing in medical education, and our program has been actively pursuing opportunities to implement its use in partnership with the Advanced Technical Skills Simulation Laboratory (ATSSL) at the University of Calgary. An important area of opportunity is Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) in medicine, and resident Dr. Nadia Popov contributes greatly to these as well as having been elected to the PARA Assembly. 

Our residency program’s inception in 2004 and this year we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the residency program, and the program founder Dr. John Latter (Professor Emeritus). As well, all of our trainees who have challenged the licensing examinations for EMG (electromyography) and CASEM (Canadian Association of Sport Exercise Medicine) have been successful, which is a reflection of the strong partnership that Physiatry has with our neuromuscular colleagues and the excellent neurologic and musculoskeletal training that our residents receive. Our leadership through section head Dr. Sean Dukelow has resulted in the ongoing evolution and growth of our residency program through all clinical and academic productivity. 

When looking at our most recent graduates, Dr. Lauren Capozzi is currently a clinical/research fellow in the cancer rehabilitation fellowship program here in Calgary. Dr. Michael Poscente, was successful in being hired into a competitive position in our program as a hospital-based amputee rehabilitation physiatrist based at both Foothills Medical Centre & Peter Lougheed Centre.