Vancouver - Neurosurgery

University of British ColumbiaVancouver, British ColumbiaCMG stream

Program websiteWebsite CANPREPPCANPREPP

Open on carms.ca

CaRMS program description, 2026 match, last approved 14 Aug 2025

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

Positions (approx. quota): 2 positions
Length: 6 years
Stream: CMG
Discipline: Neurosurgery
Applications per year: 0–50
Applicants offered interviews: 51–75%
Accreditation: Accredited
CaRMS program ID: 29597

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

Summary

The University of British Columbia Neurosurgery Residency Program is dedicated to comprehensive training of future neurosurgical leaders, emphasizing clinical excellence, technical skills, scholarship, leadership, and teaching. The program aims to equip graduates with the academic and clinical skills to advance all spheres of neurosurgery through a rigorous 6-year training experience.

Training

Research

Basic science research is encouraged, with a supervised annual clinical research project expected for PGY2 and above residents. Full-time research coordinator available to support residents.

Training setting

Training occurs across multiple urban hospitals in British Columbia, including Vancouver General Hospital, BC Children's Hospital, Victoria General Hospital, Lions Gate Hospital, and Kelowna General Hospital.

Teaching approach

Competency-Based Medical Education (CBME) approach with personalized training plans crafted to enable success in knowledge and technical skills acquisition across the full breadth of Neurosurgery.

Setting types

Academic medical center
Tertiary care center
Pediatric hospital

Focus areas

Intracranial Neurosurgery
Spinal Neurosurgery
Pediatric Neurosurgery
Clinical Research
Academic Medicine

Patient populations

Adult neurosurgical patients
Pediatric neurosurgical patients
Spine surgery patients
Cranial surgery patients

Highlights

Weekly academic day with formal presentations
Case presentations and correlative rounds
Research opportunities with research coordinator support
Funded trips to present papers at major neurosurgical meetings
Cadaver dissection sessions
Resident Boot Camp
Option for advanced degrees (Masters/PhD)
Opportunity to complete elective blocks at non-UBC sites

Strengths

Comprehensive 6-year training program
Large volume of surgical cases
Strong research infrastructure
Diverse training sites
Flexible training approach
Supportive research environment

Enhanced skills

Research training
Advanced degree opportunities
Specialized course attendance

By year

PGY-1

Non-neurosurgery rotationsVarious departmentsMultiple blocks
Adult Intracranial NeurosurgeryVancouver General HospitalMultiple blocks
Spinal NeurosurgeryVancouver General HospitalMultiple blocks

PGY-2

Non-neurosurgery rotationsVarious departmentsMultiple blocks
Adult Intracranial NeurosurgeryVancouver General HospitalMultiple blocks
Spinal NeurosurgeryVancouver General HospitalMultiple blocks

From the program's rotation list.

Selection

What the program looks at

Medical Student Performance Record (MSPR)
Reference documents
Personal letter
CV
Electives
Research/Publications
Interview performance

Applications per year

0–50

Applicants offered interviews

51–75%

Interviews

Dates (2026 match): 19 Jan 2026

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

Pay

Provincial scale, last updated 2 Sep 2026 · check the current agreement(opens in a new tab)

Salaries from April 2027.

Annual salary by PGY level, British Columbia
Level	Annual salary
PGY-1	$71,390 / year
PGY-2	$79,571 / year
PGY-3	$86,655 / year
PGY-4	$93,230 / year
PGY-5	$100,215 / year
PGY-6	$106,953 / year

One provincial scale for British Columbia, set by the resident agreement, so every program there pays the same. Showing the 6 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
CMPA dues paid: Yes. Mandatory
Dental plan: 100% Premiums Paid
Educational leave: Yes
Extended health insurance: 100% Premiums Paid
Frequency of calls: 1 in 4 onsite/1 in 3 offsite
Life insurance: 100% Premium Paid
Long-term disability insurance: Yes 100% Premiums Paid
Maternity leave: 17 weeks, plus up to 78 weeks Parental Leave
Meal allowance: No
Provincial dues (% of salary): 1.5%
Provincial health insurance: 100% Premiums Paid
Sick leave: Yes
Statutory holidays: 2 x pay plus extra day with pay

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.

RDBC agreement, 1 Apr 2025 to 31 Mar 2029.

Teaching sites

Vancouver General Hospital
BC Children's Hospital
Victoria General Hospital
Lions Gate Hospital
Kelowna General 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.

Vancouver General Hospital

Matched to Vancouver General Hospital in the province’s hospital list.

Elective surgeries completed, 2025/26: 13,790 All procedure groups, for the fiscal year (1 April to 31 March). Scheduled surgery only: emergency surgery is not in the file.
Elective surgeries completed, 2026/27 Q1: 3,855 One quarter (April to June), interim figures, all procedure groups. Scheduled surgery only.

BC Children's Hospital

Matched to BC Children's Hospital (Vancouver) in the province’s hospital list.

Elective surgeries completed, 2025/26: 7,396 All procedure groups, for the fiscal year (1 April to 31 March). Scheduled surgery only: emergency surgery is not in the file.
Elective surgeries completed, 2026/27 Q1: 1,910 One quarter (April to June), interim figures, all procedure groups. Scheduled surgery only.

Victoria General Hospital

Matched to Victoria General Hospital (Victoria) in the province’s hospital list.

Elective surgeries completed, 2025/26: 8,131 All procedure groups, for the fiscal year (1 April to 31 March). Scheduled surgery only: emergency surgery is not in the file.
Elective surgeries completed, 2026/27 Q1: 2,108 One quarter (April to June), interim figures, all procedure groups. Scheduled surgery only.

Show facts for 2 more sites

Lions Gate Hospital

Matched to Lions Gate Hospital (North Vancouver) in the province’s hospital list.

Elective surgeries completed, 2025/26: 10,660 All procedure groups, for the fiscal year (1 April to 31 March). Scheduled surgery only: emergency surgery is not in the file.
Elective surgeries completed, 2026/27 Q1: 2,762 One quarter (April to June), interim figures, all procedure groups. Scheduled surgery only.

Kelowna General Hospital

Matched to Kelowna General Hospital (Kelowna) in the province’s hospital list.

Elective surgeries completed, 2025/26: 15,707 All procedure groups, for the fiscal year (1 April to 31 March). Scheduled surgery only: emergency surgery is not in the file.
Elective surgeries completed, 2026/27 Q1: 4,090 One quarter (April to June), interim figures, all procedure groups. Scheduled surgery only.

Sources and licences

Contains information licensed under the Open Government Licence – British Columbia.

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

Vancouver, British Columbia

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: 5.3 °C Vancouver (Harbour), 5.7 km away
July average: 19.0 °C Vancouver (Harbour), 5.7 km away
Snowfall: 36.6 cm a year Vancouver International (Airport), 7.6 km away
Days below −20 °C: 0.0 days a year Vancouver (Harbour), 5.7 km away

People

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

Population: 662,248 people up 4.9% from 2016
Official languages: English only 84.8% · French only 0.1% · English and French 9.3% · neither 5.8% Share of residents who can conduct a conversation in each. This is not the language spoken at home.
Immigrants: 42.2% of residents arrived 2016–2021: 6.4% · non-permanent residents: 6.6%
Indigenous identity: 2.3% of residents
How people commute: car, truck or van 56.2% · public transit 22.9% · walking or cycling 18.4% · other 2.6% Average commute: 25.3 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: $82,000 before tax $72,000 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: Vancouver, a large urban population centre (100,000 or more people) 2,426,160 people in 2021
Remoteness index: 0.062 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: 3.7% October 2025 survey, Vancouver, British Columbia (census metropolitan area). The share of purpose-built rentals (three units and over) vacant, not a rent.
Basic cost of living: $64,351 a year Market Basket Measure 2025, Vancouver, British Columbia, 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: 6.5% September 2026, three-month average, seasonally adjusted, Vancouver, British Columbia (census metropolitan area); standard error 0.4 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 Lower Mainland - Southwest 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.