The Pathways Program
Background
During the next decade, because of increasing pressures on resources, we believe there will be a selective pressure to create institutions of excellence in many of the most relevant areas of healthcare growth including science, entrepreneurship, patient safety and quality, global health, medical education, data science and health systems management. At the same time, an increasing number of residents are deciding early in their education to pursue specialized careers in these areas. The Osler Medical Residency aspires to recruit and develop physicians who will become leaders in these fields. Therefore, recognizing the depth of experience needed to succeed in these fields, we have created formal pathways to cultivate interest, develop skills, receive mentorship, and promote career development for our residents during their internal medicine training. Our premise is that early and meaningful exposure to the tremendous resources and mentors across our health system and university will develop our residents into world-class leaders they aspire to become.
Overall Structure
The Osler Program launched the first phase of the Pathways Program in July 2015—an innovative approach to career development unique in graduate medical education. The Pathways Program transforms the second and third years of internal medicine training into specialized programs using curricula with unique coursework, hands-on experiences, sophisticated exposure to content and experts, and individualized mentorship. Four Pathways are being launched initially—each a formalized program to which interested residents may apply at the end of their internship. The Pathways are designed for residents in whom the selected domain is highly likely to become central to their career. This is important because of the resources that will be committed to each resident, as well as the replacement of more traditional training experiences with more focused experiences in line with their chosen pathway. As such, not all residents will become part of a pathway, and not all interested residents will be accepted into pathways. Pathways are selected only at the end of Internship year.
