Five Years of Launch FM: Changing the Conversation Around Family Medicine

Five years ago, Launch FM was created with a simple but powerful purpose: to challenge misconceptions about family medicine and introduce future physicians to the breadth, diversity and possibilities of the specialty.

Five years and hundreds of medical students later, that mission continues to bring together first-year University of Saskatchewan (USask) medical students, family medicine residents and physicians for an authentic introduction to a specialty that is often misunderstood.

But Launch FM is about more than introducing students to family medicine. It's about creating opportunities for learners to discover what the specialty could mean for their own futures.

Discovering the possibilities of family medicine

For students beginning their medical education, choosing a specialty can feel like a distant and overwhelming decision. Launch FM creates an opportunity to explore family medicine early in that journey, before perceptions and assumptions begin to shape career choices.

Rather than simply telling students what family medicine is, Launch FM invites them to experience it firsthand.

“This event is really important for us within the Department of Family Medicine. This is our fifth year of the event, and each year it’s really building. We are so excited to be able to share this event with all our students,” shares Dr. Matt Kushneriuk (MD), undergraduate director with the Department of Family Medicine.

For the first time this year, Launch FM was hosted simultaneously in Regina and Saskatoon — one event, two cities. The expansion responded to growing medical school enrolment while creating opportunities for students to connect with family physicians in their own communities.

 

For Jackson Diamond, a first-year medical student from Nipawin, Saskatchewan, family medicine is already a potential career path. With a particular interest in rural medicine, Diamond is drawn to the relationships and diversity of practice the specialty offers.

“I really like that you get to work with people throughout their lifespan, as well as it seems to be more community based. You get to build that connection with people in the community and then also interact with them outside of the clinic, and understand what contributes to a person’s care more than just the reason they came in. I also like how there are opportunities to do a lot of different things too, you aren’t just doing the same thing all the time.”

Building connections that shape careers

While hands-on learning is a highlight of Launch FM, the relationships formed throughout the event can have an equally lasting impact.

By bringing medical students together with family medicine residents and practising physicians, Launch FM creates space for meaningful conversations, mentorship and a deeper understanding of what a career in family medicine can look like.

For Dr. Josh Roberts (MD), a first-year family medicine resident who matched to Saskatoon, those connections are an important part of finding the right career path.

“Throughout medical school, they’ve been saying to us to find your people and that’s probably what specialty or career you are going to do. It [Launch FM] is a good way to get your foot in the door, to start meeting some of the doctors and start understanding what the practice is all about.”

First-year medical student Zi Qi Wei echoes that sentiment, encouraging future participants to make the most of the opportunity to connect with physicians.

“By far the biggest thing is talk to the people who are here. I just had a great conversation with the physician who was helping me put on my cast about careers in family medicine and it helps break my assumptions of what it (family medicine) was and helps me see it for what it is. That helps inform both my career choices today, but also my choices of how I want to go through med school – what types of shadowing I want to do, what I want to keep on my radar.”

These conversations reflect one of Launch FM's central goals: to create connections that extend beyond a single event and help students build relationships with potential mentors throughout their medical education.

Building on that goal, this year's event introduced a dedicated session focused on clerkship and undergraduate family medicine opportunities, helping students identify pathways for continued engagement and mentorship across the province.

Challenging misconceptions through hands-on learning

Beyond the conversations and connections, Launch FM offers something equally valuable: the opportunity to experience the clinical diversity of family medicine firsthand.

Through interactive learning stations, students explored procedures that challenge traditional perceptions of what family physicians do.

This year's activities included suturing, punch biopsies and ultrasound, alongside casting in Saskatoon and knee injections in Regina.

For first-year medical student Delaney Britton, the experience offered a different perspective on the specialty.

“Before this event, I definitely thought it was a little boring, lots of less acute visits, but I am definitely seeing through the clinics that we are getting, like ultrasound, that lots of the family docs are getting to deal with really acute care which is what I’m really interested in.”

Her experience speaks to the very misconception Launch FM was designed to address: that family medicine offers a narrow or predictable scope of practice.

Instead, students are introduced to a specialty defined by its diversity, adaptability and opportunities to practise medicine in ways that reflect their individual interests and the needs of their communities.

Five years of changing the conversation

Over the past five years, Launch FM has grown in reach, bringing hundreds of future physicians into conversations about the possibilities of family medicine.

But perhaps its greatest impact cannot be measured by attendance alone.

It is found in the student who discovers an unexpected interest, the conversation that challenges a long-held assumption, or the connection with a physician that helps shape a future career.

Five years later, Launch FM continues to demonstrate that changing perceptions doesn't always begin with telling a different story about family medicine.

Sometimes, it begins by giving students the opportunity to discover that story for themselves.