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Cape Breton - Family Medicine integrated Emergency Medicine

Dalhousie UniversityCape Breton, Nova ScotiaCMG stream

Program websiteWebsiteContacts and 7 more links
Open on carms.ca(opens in a new tab)

CaRMS program description, 2027 match, last approved 11 Sep 2026 · See the 2026 version

2027 match programs, from CaRMS as of 5 Oct 2026. Programs can still change until file review opens 26 November; we re-check every two weeks. Always confirm on CaRMS (opens in a new tab).

Positions (approx. quota)
3 positions
Length
3 years
Stream
CMG
Discipline
Family Medicine integrated Emergency Medicine
Applications per year
401–600
Applicants offered interviews
76–100%
Accreditation
Accredited
CaRMS program ID
36375

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

Summary

  • This three-year program in Sydney, Cape Breton, integrates family medicine with enhanced skills in emergency medicine.
  • Residents train at Cape Breton Regional Hospital and repeatedly return to a small rural community such as Baddeck or Cheticamp.
  • Residents complete 32 weeks of emergency medicine blocks plus longitudinal ED shifts, and a scholarly project is required.

Training

Setting
  • Regional community
  • Rural / remote
  • Academic / tertiary hospital
Sites

9 teaching sites

  • Cape Breton Regional Hospital (CBRH)
  • Baddeck
  • Cheticamp
Show all 9
  • Arichat
  • Neil's Harbour
  • Inverness
  • IWK
  • St. Mike's
  • Sunnybrook

Distributed across a region

Rural exposure
Required rural rotation
Focus areas
  • Rural / remote
  • Longitudinal / integrated
  • POCUS curriculum
Research
Required · research or quality-improvement project · protected time
Enhanced skills
  • Emergency Medicine
  • Palliative Care
  • Care of the Elderly
Getting around
  • A car is required
  • Housing away from the home site is provided or paid for
  • Travel is reimbursed
Highlights
  • Integrates the two-year family medicine and one-year emergency medicine enhanced skills training into a single three-year program.
  • Funded ECCU POCUS certification in second year.
  • PGY3 trauma rotation targeted at Toronto trauma centres, focused on trauma team leader experience.

By year

PGY-1
  • Core Family Medicine12 weeks
  • Community Family Medicinesmall Maritime community8 weeks
  • Orientation in FM4 weeks
  • Emergency Medicine4 weeks
  • HospitalistCBRH4 weeks
  • General Surgery4 weeks
  • Obstetrics/GynecologySydney4 weeks
  • Orthopaedics4 weeks
  • Pediatrics4 weeks
  • Critical Care4 weeks
  • Family Medicine ObstetricsSaint John, NB4 weeks
  • Vacation4 weeks
PGY-2
  • Core Family Medicine16 weeks
  • Community Family Medicinesame small Maritime community from Year 116 weeks
  • Geriatric Medicine4 weeks
  • Palliative Care4 weeks
  • Emergency Medicine4 weeks
  • Internal Medicine4 weeks
  • Peds EmergIWK, Halifax4 weeks
  • Critical Care4 weeks
  • Elective(s)4 weeks
  • Vacation4 weeks
PGY-3
  • Emergency Medicine16 weeks
  • Core Family Medicine8 weeks
  • Intensive Care Unit8 weeks
  • Community Family Medicineone of our rural sites8 weeks
  • Critical Care4 weeks
  • TraumaSt. Mike's or Sunnybrook in Toronto (location TBD)4 weeks
  • Elective4 weeks
  • Vacation4 weeks

From the program's rotation list.

Selection

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. Check the provincial return-of-service rules.
Applications per year
401–600
Applicants offered interviews
76–100%

Interviews

Dates (2027 match)
25 Jan 2027
Mode
Virtual
Format
  • Traditional (one on one/two on one)

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

Info sessions

From the program’s CaRMS page (opens in a new tab), read 1 Oct 2026. Dates and times are as the program wrote them, not converted to your time zone. Programs add and change sessions: confirm with the program.

Pay

Provincial scale, last updated 24 Jul 2026 · check the current agreement(opens in a new tab)

Annual salary by PGY level, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island
LevelAnnual salary
PGY-1
$78,578 / year
PGY-2
$83,904 / year
PGY-3
$89,462 / year

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 the 3 levels this program covers.

Benefits

Benefits as listed by CaRMS in 2022–2024; check the current agreement(opens in a new tab)

Annual vacation
4 weeks
Call stipend
Yes
CMPA dues paid
Yes
Dental coverage
Yes
Educational leave
Yes
Extended health insurance
Yes
Frequency of call
l in 4 in-hospital and for homecall
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

Call

Call (provincial max)
1 night in 4 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.

MarDocs agreement, 1 Jul 2024 to 30 Jun 2027.

Teaching sites

  • Cape Breton Regional Hospital (CBRH) (Sydney)
  • Baddeck (Baddeck · rural or distributed site)
  • Cheticamp (Cheticamp · rural or distributed site)
  • Arichat (Arichat · rural or distributed site)
  • Neil's Harbour (Neil's Harbour · rural or distributed site)
  • Inverness (Inverness · rural or distributed site)
  • IWK (Halifax)
  • St. Mike's (Toronto)
  • Sunnybrook (Toronto)

Hospital facts

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

Cape Breton Regional Hospital (CBRH)

Matched to Cape Breton Regional Hospital (Sydney) in the province’s hospital list.

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

IWK

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

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

Sources and licences

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

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

Grouped by the titles CaRMS lists. The program office (administrators and coordinators) usually answers questions about the program and applying; the director leads the training.

Program officeadministrators and coordinators

Program Information

fmresidency@dal.ca

James Logan · Accreditation and CaRMS Administrator

902-487-2012

Program director

  • Dr. Sasha Sealy

CaRMS lists no email for the director.

Site staffdirectors and coordinators at the teaching sites

FMEM Cape Breton

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

More links

Location

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia

Loading amenities…

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
−5.0 °C Sydney, 5.7 km away
July average
18.2 °C Sydney, 5.7 km away
Snowfall
281.1 cm a year Sydney, 5.7 km away
Days below −20 °C
2.5 days a year Sydney, 5.7 km away

People

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

Population
93,694 people down 0.6% from 2016
Official languages
English only 95.5% · French only 0.0% · English and French 4.3% · neither 0.1% Share of residents who can conduct a conversation in each. This is not the language spoken at home.
Immigrants
2.3% of residents arrived 2016–2021: 0.4% · non-permanent residents: 2.5%
Indigenous identity
3.2% of residents
How people commute
car, truck or van 91.9% · public transit 1.9% · walking or cycling 3.6% · other 2.6% Average commute: 17.7 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
$62,400 before tax $55,600 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
Glace Bay, a small population centre (1,000 to 29,999 people) 16,915 people in 2021
Remoteness index
0.323 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
2.7% October 2025 survey, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia (census agglomeration). The share of purpose-built rentals (three units and over) vacant, not a rent.
Basic cost of living
$51,062 a year Market Basket Measure 2025, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, 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.

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 34-10-0131-01. This does not constitute an endorsement by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation or Statistics Canada of this product.
  • Data Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada (Canadian Climate Normals 1991-2020).
  • 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 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 6 Oct 2026.