London - Cardiac Surgery

Western UniversityLondon, OntarioCMG stream

Program websiteWebsite CANPREPPCANPREPP

Open on carms.ca

CaRMS program description, 2026 match, last approved 19 Sep 2025

From the 2026 match (R-1 2026). See the 2027 version

Positions (approx. quota): 1 position
Length: 6 years
Stream: CMG
Discipline: Cardiac Surgery
Applications per year: 51–200
Applicants offered interviews: 0–25%
Accreditation: Accredited
CaRMS program ID: 29764

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

Summary

The Western University Cardiac Surgery Residency Program is a comprehensive 6-year training program designed to develop highly competent cardiac surgeons. The program offers extensive clinical experience across multiple surgical disciplines, with a strong emphasis on surgical skills, research, and academic development.

Training

Research

No mandatory research requirements, but trainees are strongly encouraged to participate in clinical and laboratory research, with potential for Master's thesis preparation.

Training setting

Training occurs primarily at University Hospital in London, Ontario, with additional rotations at Victoria Hospital and pediatric rotations at Montreal Children's Hospital. The program serves a population of 450,000 in Southwestern Ontario.

Teaching approach

Competency-based medical education with progressive independence, emphasizing comprehensive surgical training, research participation, and continuous self-improvement.

Setting types

Academic medical center
Tertiary care center

Focus areas

Adult Cardiac Surgery
Pediatric Cardiac Surgery
Minimally Invasive Mitral Valve Surgery
Aortic Surgery
Cardiac Transplantation

Patient populations

Adult cardiac surgery patients
Pediatric cardiac surgery patients
Vascular surgery patients
Emergency medicine patients

Highlights

Master's program enrollment option
Weekly academic half days
Mandatory seminar series
Monthly Mortality review rounds
Monthly Journal Review sessions
Financial support for conference attendance

Strengths

National leader in adult cardiac surgery
Strong collaborative research relationships
Comprehensive surgical foundations training
Flexible academic and research opportunities

Enhanced skills

Master's program
Research opportunities
Academic career preparation

By year

PGY-1

Surgical FoundationsUniversity HospitalFull year
General SurgeryUniversity HospitalBlocks
Cardiac SurgeryUniversity HospitalBlocks

PGY-2

Surgical FoundationsUniversity HospitalFull year
CardiologyUniversity HospitalBlocks
Emergency MedicineUniversity HospitalBlocks

PGY-3

Academic Enrichment YearWestern UniversityFull year

PGY-4

Vascular SurgeryUniversity HospitalBlocks
Thoracic SurgeryUniversity HospitalBlocks
Cardiac SurgeryUniversity HospitalSignificant blocks

PGY-5

Pediatric Cardiac SurgeryMontreal Children's HospitalPartial year
Adult Cardiac SurgeryUniversity HospitalPartial year

From the program's rotation list.

Selection

What the program looks at

Academic record
CV/Research portfolio
Reference letters
Interview performance
Personal letter

Applications per year

51–200

Applicants offered interviews

0–25%

Interviews

Dates (2026 match): 7 Feb 2026

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

Pay

Provincial scale, last updated 6 Jan 2025 · check the current agreement(opens in a new tab)

Contract expired, may change.

Annual salary by PGY level, Ontario
Level	Annual salary
PGY-1	$73,367 / year
PGY-2	$79,670 / year
PGY-3	$85,564 / year
PGY-4	$92,701 / year
PGY-5	$98,567 / year
PGY-6	$104,167 / year

One provincial scale for Ontario, set by the resident agreement, so every program there pays the same. Showing the 6 levels this program covers.

Call

Call (provincial max): 7 nights in 28 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.

PARO agreement, 1 Jul 2023 to 30 Jun 2026. The term has ended; its terms continue until a new agreement is signed.

Teaching sites

University Hospital
Victoria Hospital
Montreal Children's Hospital

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.

Montreal Children's Hospital

Matched to L'Hôpital de Montréal pour Enfants (Montréal) in the province’s hospital list.

Emergency visits: 2025–2026: 25,738 · 2026–2027: 26,552 Cumulative from 1 April to the end of period 5 of 13 (about 20 weeks) of each fiscal year. Not a yearly total: compare only the same period.

For the other sites: Ontario doesn't publish this as open data.

Sources and licences

Contient de l'information fournie par le ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec et visée par CC BY 4.0. Données modifiées. (Contains information provided by the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec under CC BY 4.0. Data modified.)

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

Contacts weren't collected for the 2026 match.

The current program director and contacts are on the 2027 version of this program and on the CaRMS program page(opens in a new tab).

Location

London, Ontario

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: −5.4 °C London, 10.3 km away
July average: 21.0 °C London, 10.3 km away
Snowfall: 152.3 cm a year Strathroy-Mullifarry, 31.2 km away
Days below −20 °C: 4.5 days a year London, 10.3 km away

People

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

Population: 422,324 people up 10.0% from 2016
Official languages: English only 90.9% · French only 0.1% · English and French 7.1% · neither 1.9% Share of residents who can conduct a conversation in each. This is not the language spoken at home.
Immigrants: 24.8% of residents arrived 2016–2021: 4.7% · non-permanent residents: 4.6%
Indigenous identity: 2.6% of residents
How people commute: car, truck or van 85.9% · public transit 6.4% · walking or cycling 5.5% · other 2.2% Average commute: 20.7 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: $76,500 before tax $68,500 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: London, a large urban population centre (100,000 or more people) 423,369 people in 2021
Remoteness index: 0.109 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: 3.8% October 2025 survey, London, Ontario (census metropolitan area). The share of purpose-built rentals (three units and over) vacant, not a rent.
Basic cost of living: $55,434 a year Market Basket Measure 2025, Ontario, population 500,000 and over, 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: 8.4% September 2026, three-month average, seasonally adjusted, London, Ontario (census metropolitan area); standard error 0.8 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: Good The employment outlook will be Good for specialists in surgery (NOC 31101) in the London 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 5 Oct 2026.