McMaster KW & Area Family Medicine Residency Program

KW CaRMS Presentation 2025

The Academic Hub is located in downtown Kitchener. This space is shared with McMaster’s Waterloo Regional Campus (WRC), the University of Waterloo’s School of Pharmacy and Optometry Clinic as well as The Centre for Family Medicine FHT. A trending neighbourhood and business centre, as well as the location of all academic programs, multiple specialty clinics, and the home base of many of our primary preceptors in family medicine.

“I can’t say enough about how wonderful the KW site is! As a large community, it offers similar volumes to academic centres with increased learning opportunities as you are often the only learner on service with your preceptor. Our education team is excellent and very accommodating, allowing us to cater our residency to our learning goals. And finally, our preceptors and co-residents are all very kind and I’ve found a great community among them.”
– PGY2 Farah Henry, Class of 2025

Schedule

All rotations are conducted within the Waterloo Regional Campus area which incorporates Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, Guelph, Wellesley and surrounding communities. Second year electives and core two block rural rotations may be conducted further afield if desired.

Sample Schedules

“10/10 program. I have been blown away by the educational staff, preceptors and my co-residents. Between the learning opportunities and welcoming community, I cannot imagine doing residency anywhere else!”
– PGY2 Paul Bullock, Class of 2024

Home Bases

Each year, residents conduct 16 weeks of full-time family medicine at their home base site (see the map and links below for information about each site) and return for weekly continuity clinics the rest of their 2 years of residency.

Following the CaRMS match, our administrative staff take great care to help residents match to each site through an internal matching process.

Map showing Clinical Homebases Clinic locations within the Region of Waterloo.

Please view the below PDFs to learn more about the clinics
Hospitals

Grand River Hospital – Kitchener
St. Mary’s Hospital – Kitchener
Guelph General Hospital – Guelph
Cambridge Memorial Hospital – Cambridge

For more information about living and working in these communities, click here

Unique Learning Opportunities

Sample PGY1 and PGY2 Schedules for Integrated Rotations

Integrated
Faculty are dedicated to providing excellent clinical experiences to residents within a new curriculum that emphasizes an integrated focus on primary care.

Electives
Local block and horizontal electives are available in a wide range of areas including, but not limited to: Sports Medicine, Oncology, Public Health, Student Health, Emergency Medicine, Anesthesia, Orthopedics, Refugee Health Clinic, Psychiatric Outreach, Memory Clinic, Anticoagulation Clinic, and Medical Student Clinical Skills Teaching.

Specialty clinics
A chance to explore other areas of interest throughout your residency! Opportunities include anticoagulation clinic, supportive care, pain management, travel medicine, psychiatry, GP-anesthesia, and more!

“The KW site is an absolutely outstanding place to train. The education team is so supportive and the program is so customizable to individual career goals – because every family doctors job looks different, we all have unique training needs.”
– PGY2 Amber Macleod, Class of 2025

Contact us

Site Director: Dr. Marc Sawyer
Site Associate: Heidi Hallman

If you would like more information about the KW and Area Program please email Heidi Hallman at hallmanh@mcmaster.ca

If you would like more information about the family medicine at McMaster University click here.