New St. Mary's Clinical Teaching Unit aims to provide 'more time for hands on learning'

A new Clinical Teaching Unit (CTU) is officially open at St. Mary's General Hospital in Kitchener.

The new unit has been in operation since July, but a grand opening was held on Wednesday.

The CTU was funded by the St. Mary’s General Hospital Foundation, and is run in partnership with McMaster University’s Michael G. DeGroote, School of Medicine. The unit is located on the fourth floor of the hospital and focuses on providing internal care, while residents and nursing students can have hands on experience in the hospital.

“We’ve been delivering care for St. Mary's for 100 years. This clinical teaching unit is going to help guide us into the future," said Mark Fam, president of St. Mary’s General Hospital.

“A general internist kind of leading the team. Then a number of medical learners that see patients, build on their medical training through the core of their internal medicine to learn at the bedside,” said Dr. Trevor Semplonius, a physician in internal medicine.

Two students have come through the new unit at St. Mary’s since July, but the hospital hopes to have four or five at a time. There's already a teaching unit at Grand River Hospital in partnership with McMaster, but experts say the learning at St. Mary's is different.

"The types of illnesses that patients present with is quite different. So the current unit here is less beds, so it actually provides us with more time for hands on learning with residents,” said Dr. Semplonius.

The Clinical Teaching Unit at Grand River Hospital has 24 beds. The new St. Mary’s unit has 20 beds. Both hospitals hope to expand their teaching opportunities in the future.

“It's a great partnership we have together with Grand River. So as the two hospitals come together, clinical teaching is going to be a really important part of our future,” said Fam.

According to McMaster, about a third of the students that come to the Region of Waterloo to learn end up staying in the community. Experts say they hope this new unit will help retain even more physicians.

"They grow accustomed to the region. They learn from the physicians who are happy here. And when a clinician is happy and the learner sees that, they say, 'I would like to live here too,'" said Dr. Margo Mountjoy, regional assistant dean.

Dr. Jaymee Shell, one of the physicians working in the Clinical Teaching Unit at St. Mary's, decided to stay in the region after going through the Clinical Teaching Unit at Grand River Hospital.

“I still remember the first day that I went to the CTU at Grand River as a medical student, and for me that was a really transformative experience. I hadn't really thought of a career in internal medicine until then. And so, you know, I hope that some students will come to the CTU at St. Mary's one day and have a similar experience for them,” said Shell.