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Calgary - Plastic Surgery

University of CalgaryCalgary, AlbertaCMG stream

Program websiteWebsiteInstagramCANPREPPCANPREPPContacts and 1 more link
Open on carms.ca(opens in a new tab)

CaRMS program description, 2027 match, last approved 8 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
5 years
Stream
CMG
Discipline
Plastic Surgery
Applications per year
51–200
Applicants offered interviews
0–25%
Accreditation
Accredited
CaRMS program ID
36289

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

Summary

  • The University of Calgary Plastic Surgery program is a 5-year residency that admits three residents per year.
  • Training takes place at several Calgary sites, including Foothills Medical Centre, Alberta Children's Hospital, and community and private-practice settings.
  • Residents must complete an annual research project and have weekly protected research time.
  • Call is generally 1-in-4, nominally home call, but residents often stay in hospital.

Training

Setting
  • Academic / tertiary hospital
  • Urban community
Sites

8 teaching sites

  • Foothills Medical Centre (FMC)
  • Calgary Firefighters Burn Treatment Centre
  • Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre / Tom Baker Cancer Centre
Show all 8
  • Alberta Children’s Hospital (ACH)
  • Rockyview General Hospital (RGH)
  • Peter Lougheed Centre (PLC)
  • South Health Campus (SHC)
  • Private Offices and Accredited Surgical Facilities
Rural exposure
Not stated on CaRMS page
Focus areas
  • Small program
Research
Required · research or quality-improvement project · protected time
Call
In-house and home call · frequency “one-in-four (1:4)”
Highlights
  • PGY-5 residents run the senior resident cosmetic clinic independently.
  • Residents get exposure to less common areas such as gender surgery and wrist/distal radius surgery.
  • Residents run a medical student primer covering all plastic surgery subspecialties.

By year

Not stated on CaRMS page

Other rotations

Listed by the program without a single PGY year.

  • orthopaedic surgery (PGY-1 and 2 - Surgical Foundations)
  • trauma (PGY-1 and 2 - Surgical Foundations)
  • ICU (PGY-1 and 2 - Surgical Foundations)
  • plastic surgery (PGY-1 and 2 - Surgical Foundations)
  • breast melanoma (PGY-1 and 2 - Surgical Foundations)
  • vascular surgery (PGY-1 and 2 - Surgical Foundations)
  • Oral Maxillofacial Surgery (PGY-1 and 2 - Surgical Foundations)
  • ENT (PGY-1 and 2 - Surgical Foundations)

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
51–200
Applicants offered interviews
0–25%

Interviews

Dates (2027 match)
26 Jan 2027
Mode
Virtual
Format
  • Panel

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

Info sessions

  • Thu 5 Nov 20265:30–6:30 pm MST

    Info session

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 22 Jul 2026 · check the current agreement(opens in a new tab)

Annual salary by PGY level, Alberta
LevelAnnual salary
PGY-1
$67,440 / year
PGY-2
$74,153 / year
PGY-3
$80,058 / year
PGY-4
$86,281 / year
PGY-5
$92,698 / year

One provincial scale for Alberta, set by the resident agreement, so every program there pays the same. Showing the 5 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/yr
Call Stipends
weekday in-house –  $118.02weekend in-house / holiday – $178.72weekday home call – $59.01weekend home call / holiday – $89.35
CMPA dues paid
$1,500
Dental plan
75% premium paid
Educational leave
14 days paid leave
Extended health insurance
75% premium paid$1000 per year Flexible Spending Account*
Frequency of calls
In-house call: 7/28. 2/4 weekend call.Home call: 9/28. 2/4 weekend call**A Resident scheduled on Home call but who is required to work more than four hours in hospital during the call period, of which more than one full hour is past 12:00 a.m. and before 6:00 a.m., or more than six (6) hours in hospital during the call period, shall be remunerated at the rate for In-House call.$100 per day for each scheduled weekend day of patient rounds when not on-call
Life insurance
100% towards $150,000 coverage
Life Support Course Costs (Program Approved
100% paid
Long-term disability insurance
100% paid for 75% gross income
Maternity Leave
18 weeks total (17 weeks paid to match 90% of salary when combined with EI)
Parental Leave
2 weeks leave with full pay and benefits;52 weeks (inclusive of Maternity/Paternity/Adoption Leaves) – unpaid leave
Practice Stipend
$1,500
Provincial dues (% of salary)
.95%
Sick leave
Up to 3 months or to end contract paid leave, whichever occurs first
Statutory holidays
Paid days. Additional days off are given if resident works the day before and part of a named holiday.

Call

Call (provincial max)
1 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.

PARA agreement, 1 Jul 2024 to 30 Jun 2028.

Teaching sites

  • Foothills Medical Centre (FMC) (Calgary)
  • Calgary Firefighters Burn Treatment Centre (Calgary)
  • Arthur J.E. Child Comprehensive Cancer Centre / Tom Baker Cancer Centre (Calgary)
  • Alberta Children’s Hospital (ACH) (Calgary)
  • Rockyview General Hospital (RGH) (Calgary)
  • Peter Lougheed Centre (PLC) (Calgary)
  • South Health Campus (SHC) (Calgary)
  • Private Offices and Accredited Surgical Facilities (Calgary)

Hospital facts

Hospital size and activity: Alberta doesn't publish this as open data.

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

jessica.mcintosh@albertahealthservices.ca

Jessica McIntosh · Program Administrator

403-944-4317

Program directors

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

More links

Location

Calgary, Alberta

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
−7.6 °C Calgary (Airport), 9.0 km away
July average
16.9 °C Calgary (Airport), 9.0 km away
Snowfall
138.7 cm a year Calgary (Airport), 9.0 km away
Days below −20 °C
21.6 days a year Calgary (Airport), 9.0 km away

People

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

Population
1,306,784 people up 5.5% from 2016
Official languages
English only 90.8% · French only 0.1% · English and French 6.6% · neither 2.5% Share of residents who can conduct a conversation in each. This is not the language spoken at home.
Immigrants
33.3% of residents arrived 2016–2021: 6.3% · non-permanent residents: 2.1%
Indigenous identity
3.2% of residents
How people commute
car, truck or van 83.2% · public transit 8.8% · walking or cycling 5.1% · other 2.9% Average commute: 23.9 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
$98,000 before tax $85,000 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
Calgary, a large urban population centre (100,000 or more people) 1,305,550 people in 2021
Remoteness index
0.106 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
4.9% October 2025 survey, Calgary, Alberta (census metropolitan area). The share of purpose-built rentals (three units and over) vacant, not a rent.
Basic cost of living
$59,153 a year Market Basket Measure 2025, Calgary, Alberta, 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.
Unemployment rate
6.3% September 2026, three-month average, seasonally adjusted, Calgary, Alberta (census metropolitan area); standard error 0.5 points. A survey estimate.

Job outlook

Employment and Social Development Canada’s rating for the occupation in the economic region. It is not a count of jobs, and says nothing about CaRMS positions or your match.

Outlook, 2025–2027
Very good The employment outlook will be Very good for specialists in surgery (NOC 31101) in the Calgary region for the 2025-2027 period.
Canada-wide, to 2033
Strong risk of Shortage ESDC’s projection for specialists in surgery, 2024–2033. Recent conditions, 2021–2023: Strong signs of Shortage.

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 34-10-0130-01. This does not constitute an endorsement by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation or Statistics Canada of this product.
  • Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada (Employment and Social Development Canada, Canadian Occupational Projection System (COPS), 2024 to 2033 projections).
  • Data Source: Environment and Climate Change Canada (Canadian Climate Normals 1991-2020).
  • Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence - Canada (Employment and Social Development Canada, 3-Year Employment Outlooks).
  • 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 14-10-0459-01 Labour force characteristics by census metropolitan area, three-month moving average, seasonally adjusted, reference month 2026-09. 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.