New BrunswickNew Brunswick medical students studying in Ottawa will now be able to do part of their studies in their home province.Horizon Health and University of Ottawa reach agreement to allow students to do part of their studies in N.B.Sam Farley · CBC News · Posted: Nov 01, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 2 minutesHorizon Health has a new agreement with the University of Ottawa to let their students from New Brunswick complete clinical rotations here. (CBC)New Brunswick medical students studying in Ottawa will now be able to do part of their studies in their home province.Horizon Health and the University of Ottawa reached a new agreement to allow New Brunswickers in their program to do clinical rotations in New Brunswick. The clinical rotations usually happen in a student’s third year of study when they are doing their core training through different areas of medicine. The agreement is part of an effort to make sure students from New Brunswick are more likely to stay here for their career. “It was a time when they’re really looking at what type of position they want to be when they’re finished,” said Ken Gillespie, Horizon’s Regional Director of Medical Education in an interview with CBC Radio’s Shift – NB. Gillespie said the idea came up two years ago from a doctor at the Moncton Hospital who had a friend at the University of Ottawa and raised the possibility. “I think we’re always very interested in any opportunity to bring New Brunswick residents back to New Brunswick for their medical training or, you know, whatever the case,” he said. Students are most likely to stay where they do their training, Gillespie said. Partnership won’t burden hospitals During a residency here, students are able to make connections with the physicians here and get a sense for how the system works, he added. “Having familiarity with the system is always a great bonus as a great way of attracting people to work in your province.”Gillespie said this new program wouldn’t add a major burden onto New Brunswick hospitals, which he said already work with students, including 40 medical students each year from Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick. The numbers will be small, he said, because there are only usually one to three New Brunswick medical students at the University of Ottawa each year. Additionally, the province already has agreements and affiliations with other schools, such as Dalhousie University, Memorial University and Sherbrooke University.“We see it as an opportunity to ultimately improve the healthcare of New Brunswickers by having more physicians in this province.”ABOUT THE AUTHORSam Farley is a Fredericton-based reporter at CBC New Brunswick. Originally from Boston, he is a journalism graduate of the University of King’s College in Halifax. He can be reached at sam.farley@cbc.caWith files from Shift – NB
Agreement allows N.B. medical students in Ottawa to do clinical rotations at home
