Inverness - Cape Breton - Family Medicine

Dalhousie UniversityInverness, Nova ScotiaCMG stream

Program websiteWebsiteContacts and 5 more links

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): 2 positions
Length: 2 years
Stream: CMG
Discipline: Family Medicine
Applications per year: 401–600
Applicants offered interviews: 76–100%
Accreditation: Accredited
CaRMS program ID: 35747

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

Summary

This two-year Dalhousie family medicine program is based in Inverness, with training throughout Cape Breton including Sydney and Antigonish.
The clinical curriculum is longitudinal and integrated, with limited block rotations in obstetrics and gynecology, ICU, geriatrics and palliative care.
Residents follow a patient panel under one to two primary preceptors and complete a required scholarly project with protected time.

Training

Setting

Rural / remote
Regional community

Sites

3 teaching sites

Inverness Consolidated Hospital
Cape Breton Regional Hospital
St. Martha’s Regional Hospital

Distributed across a region

Rural exposure

Based in a rural community

Focus areas

Longitudinal / integrated
Indigenous health

Research

Required · scholarly 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

One to two primary preceptors supervise each resident continuously across the whole two-year residency.
PGY2 residents run a resident clinic for patients without a primary care provider.
Longitudinal Indigenous health exposure in both community and hospital settings.

By year

Not stated on CaRMS page

Other rotations

Listed by the program without a single PGY year.

Family Medicine
Emergency Medicine
Internal Medicine
Orthopaedics
General Surgery
Pediatrics
Psychiatry
Palliative Medicine
Obstetrics and Gynecology
ICU
Geriatrics
Palliative Care
electives (eight weeks)

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, 26, 27, 28 and 29 Jan 2027

Mode

Virtual

Format

Traditional (one on one/two on one)

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

Info sessions

Thu 5 Nov 20267:00–9:00 pm AST
Info session · Virtual · Listed under interviews on CaRMS
Link for Dalhousie University, Thu 5 Nov 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Wed 2 Dec 20267:00–9:00 pm AST
Info session · Virtual · Listed under interviews on CaRMS
Link for Dalhousie University, Wed 2 Dec 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Sat 9 Jan 202712:00–2:00 pm AST
Social · Listed under interviews on CaRMS
Link for Dalhousie University, Sat 9 Jan 2027 (opens in a new tab)

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
Level	Annual salary
PGY-1	$78,578 / year
PGY-2	$83,904 / 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 2 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

Inverness Consolidated Hospital (Inverness)
Cape Breton Regional Hospital (Sydney)
St. Martha’s Regional Hospital (Antigonish)

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.

Inverness Consolidated Hospital

Matched to Inverness Consolidated Memorial Hospital (Inverness) in the province’s hospital list.

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

Cape Breton Regional Hospital

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.

St. Martha’s Regional Hospital

Matched to St. Martha’s Regional Hospital (Antigonish) in the province’s hospital list.

Hospital type: Regional 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

Open after round 1 in 5 of 8 years (2019–2026); still open after round 2 in 0 of 9 years.

Positions at this site, all streams. Site as CaRMS lists it: Inverness - Cape Breton.

Positions at this site, all streams, still open after round 1 and after round 2, by year. Each count above zero links to the CaRMS list page it comes from.
Year	Open after round 1	Open after round 2
2018	not available	0
2019	2 positions open after round 1 in 2019, CaRMS list (opens in a new tab)	0
2020	0	0
2021	0	0
2022	1 position open after round 1 in 2022, CaRMS list (opens in a new tab)	0
2023	0	0
2024	1 position open after round 1 in 2024, CaRMS list (opens in a new tab)	0
2025	1 position open after round 1 in 2025, CaRMS list (opens in a new tab)	0
2026	2 positions open after round 1 in 2026, CaRMS list (opens in a new tab)	0

CaRMS’s first-round list for 2018 was not found, so round 1 is counted over 8 years and round 2 over 9.

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

Cape Breton - Inverness Site

Dr. Jean MacLachlan
Assistant Site Director
jean.maclachlan@dal.ca
(902) 258-1932
Natasha Phillips
Site Administrator
natasha.phillips@nshealth.ca
(902) 258-1932

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

Location

Inverness, Nova Scotia

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: −4.0 °C Cheticamp, 53.9 km away (more than 50 km, so it may differ from the city)
July average: 18.8 °C Cheticamp, 53.9 km away (more than 50 km, so it may differ from the city)
Snowfall: 281.1 cm a year Sydney, 96.3 km away (more than 50 km, so it may differ from the city)
Days below −20 °C: 2.1 days a year Cheticamp, 53.9 km away (more than 50 km, so it may differ from the city)

People

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

Population: 4,865 people down 1.3% from 2016
Official languages: English only 96.6% · French only not reported · English and French 3.4% · neither not reported Share of residents who can conduct a conversation in each. This is not the language spoken at home.
Immigrants: 3.9% of residents arrived 2016–2021: 0.5% · non-permanent residents: 0.8%
Indigenous identity: 2.1% of residents
How people commute: car, truck or van 90.9% · public transit 1.2% · walking or cycling 5.0% · other 2.9% Average commute: 19.2 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: $65,000 before tax $58,000 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: Inverness, a small population centre (1,000 to 29,999 people) 1,228 people in 2021
Remoteness index: 0.441 0 is least remote, 1 is most remote. Statistics Canada calls this index experimental.
Student loan forgiveness: Family medicine here may qualify for up to $60,000 of Canada Student Loan forgiveness. Eligibility depends on the postal code of where you work: check the official postal-code lookup. Postal-code lookup(opens in a new tab)

Housing, cost and work

Each figure names the area it covers. A missing line means the source publishes nothing for this area.

Basic cost of living: $51,917 a year Market Basket Measure 2025, Nova Scotia, population under 30,000, 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.

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 general practitioners and family physicians (NOC 31102) in the Cape Breton region for the 2025-2027 period.
Canada-wide, to 2033: Strong risk of Shortage ESDC’s projection for general practitioners and family physicians, 2024–2033. Recent conditions, 2021–2023: Strong signs of Shortage.