Note: This elective is only available to current uOttawa residents. We are not able to offer this opportunity to external learners at this time.

Getting There

• Canadian North is the major airline for the territory of Nunavut. The Medical Affairs office within the Government of Nunavut will help coordinate and book your flights for you. Baggage allowance of 2 pieces of checked baggage is included, and any additional baggage (up to one additional bag) is also covered for you.

• You will be picked you up at the airport by a driver from the Medical Affairs office and taken to the house where you will be staying. You will get your keys to the house and your hospital pager. After this, you will likely be asked to go to the hospital for your MediTech EMR training and hospital orientation session.

• Flying in the north can be quite variable due to weather conditions – be mentally prepared for delays and possible cancellations! Contact Medical Affairs office and their on-call number at 867-222-0258 to help you re-book or re-schedule your flights if any issues come up.

Accommodations

• The family medicine and pediatric medicine residents, or any other visiting residents or medical students (other than MUN residents) usually stay at one of two transient housing units on lower and upper plateau which is within a 10min walk from the hospital.

• The house has 3 bedrooms each, sheets, a few towels, a full kitchen including microwave, TV & DVD player, wireless internet (limited bandwidth and data package), telephone for local calls, washer and dryer

Housing policy for visitors of residents

• Residents may have a single visitor come and stay with them in their room for no more than a two week period. This should be considered a privilege and respect for the needs of the other residents must be maintained.

• Families with children cannot be accommodated at the resident house. There have been residents in the past who have made house sitting arrangements and had their spouse and children with them during their rotation. This would be fully the responsibility of the resident to arrange.

Food

• Food is more costly up north (can be upwards of approximately twice as expensive)! Bring food with you if you can! There is actually a good variety of food and drink in Iqaluit – some options for groceries include NorthMart, Arctic Ventures Marketplace, and Baffin Island Canners (and the country food store if you want to try something special!).

• The hospital also provides you with food vouchers to be used at their hospital café (the food is really good!) and covers up to $20 worth of food/drink each time you use it. The café also is currently serving free coffee and tea when they are open.

• Check expiry dates carefully on anything you buy. This is especially applicable at the end of the season before the sea lift boats arrive and all of last year’s stuff is expiring.

Meal Allowance

• All residents will be provided with 5 meal vouchers per week (hospital cafeteria).

• After that they will have any meals paid for at the hospital cafeteria when they are obliged to stay on site because of clinical need, for example if the peds resident has a child in the "ICU" and must stay in the building over the dinner hour then that meal is covered. Or if the peds resident has 3 extra consults at the end of the afternoon clinic and must stay over a few hours in the evening. If a family practice resident has a woman in labour early in the morning then breakfast is covered etc. Otherwise they are responsible for paying for their own meals at the cafeteria or buying food and cooking at home. If a resident must go on a medevac the cafeteria will make a box lunch for them and the cost of that will be borne by the Dept.

The Hospital (Qikiqtani General Hospital)

• The medical education director is Dr. Patrick Foucault who can also help with questions as they arise during your rotation.

• Bring your own ID badge. However, you will also get a new hospital badge with your photo and name on it when you arrive.

• Staff dress more casually but, some staff do wear dress clothes.

• Internet is also very slow, not wireless and personal email accounts are blocked at the hospital

• Your clinical schedule is a combination of family medicine clinic, emergency medicine, obstetrics clinic or inpatient care, fly-in community clinics, anesthesia, ambulatory care support (inpatient and outpatient psychiatry medicine, home care, care of people in correctional facility, and public health clinics for STIs and TB), and community activities.

• There are many additional opportunities such as going to the territorial correctional facility (previously named Baffin Correctional Centre, and now known as Aaqqigiarvik Correctional Healing Facility), TB clinic, a fly-in remote community, medevacs, volunteering at the soup kitchen
  
  (Qayuqtuvik Society Iqaluit Soup Kitchen) or food bank, and working with the public health agency or Family Practice Clinic.

Other

• You can buy phone cards to call long distance

• There is now 3G service! Bell and Rogers (through ice wireless) are the only providers.

• Call the CMPA to add Nunavut to your coverage, it doesn’t cost extra

• There is an RBC and a CIBC bank

• If coming in the winter, bring WARM outdoor gear; a balaclava & goggles are suggested between December and March.

• Bring bug spray in the summer and a face net if you are really keen on hiking out on the land.

• Lots of fun things to do in Iqaluit in your free time! Such as, wing night on Wednesdays at the Storehouse restaurant, drinks and boardgames at the Nunavut Brewery, hiking the local trails (Silvia Grinnell territorial park, Apex trail, and Road to Nowhere), going to the museum and Inuit art galleries and shops.