Program Director Q&A with Dr. Geordie Linford

Q: Could you tell us a little about yourself and your medical background?

I grew up in the small town of Hazelton in Northern BC, and I completed my medical school training at UBC in the Northern Medical Program in Prince George. I had the opportunity to complete my third-year clerkship at a community site in Terrace BC. I completed my core internal medicine training at NOSM U in the Sudbury site and my medical oncology speciality training at Queen’s University in Kingston. I have been practicing medical oncology at Health Sciences North for 6 years. My clinical focus is primarily in lung, genitourinary and hepatobiliary tumors. I have a particular interest in medical education, and I was previously a site director for the NOSM U Internal Medicine training program. I love practicing oncology in Northern Ontario and starting this residency program has really been the culmination of a long-held belief that great oncology training and great oncology care can happen anywhere — including right here in Sudbury.

Q: Why did you want to start a Medical Oncology program?

For me, it came down to equity. NOSM U is the last Canadian medical school to develop a medical oncology training program and we know that when you train in a location, you’re much more likely to stay and practice there. This is in the context of a projected future shortage in the Canadian medical oncology workforce due to increasing patient numbers and complexity of oncologic therapies (recently on the front-page of the CMAJ). We also have a genuinely fantastic clinical environment at HSN that I felt was being underutilized as a training site. The combination of high patient volume, incredible colleagues, and an opportunity to shape something entirely new made this the right moment to develop a new program.

Q: What has been the largest challenge with starting a new program?

Building a residency program from the ground up is genuinely exciting, but it comes with its own unique set of challenges. The biggest one has been doing everything for the first time — the medical oncology training program is the first fully accredited medicine subspeciality program at NOSM U. The benefit of this is that every policy, curriculum decision, and process has been thoughtfully built from scratch. We get to be intentional about every choice we make, and we’re designing a program around what we know residents need be become excellent clinicians. Our focus is on training well rounded medical oncologists who can jump right into independent practice in a community setting or pursue additional fellowship training depending on their career goals.

Q: What is the current state of medical oncology in Northern Ontario?

The honest answer is that Northern Ontario faces real gaps in cancer care access. Patients here often travel significant distances to receive treatment and recent research from our group is helping to quantify this so that we can better advocate for equitable access to care. Health Sciences North in Sudbury is the regional cancer centre for Northeastern Ontario, managing over 3,250 new cancer cases annually across 12 satellite systemic therapy sites — so the clinical volume is high. What we’ve been missing is a dedicated training pathway that prepares oncologists specifically for practice in a community oncology environment in Northern Ontario or else where. That’s exactly the gap this program is designed to address.

Q: Will residents be training only in Sudbury?

Sudbury will be the home base for residents, but they will also have two mandatory rotations in Hamilton through our formal partnership with McMaster University. Those rotations are specifically designed in collaboration with McMaster to give residents exposure to rarer tumour types like sarcoma, CNS cancers, and gynecologic malignancies that they may encounter less frequently in the North. We’ve also made sure housing and travel costs are covered for those blocks so it’s never a financial burden. There are also optional training opportunities in Sault Ste. Marie and Thunder Bay for residents who want to explore practice in other oncology sites in the North. The four elective blocks / research blocks can be used to gain unique clinical experiences in larger centers or explore fellowship opportunities.