Churchbridge woman enters medicine thanks to opportunity to train in rural Sask
Southeast Family Medicine Residency Program
November 10, 2025, 1:36 pm
Ashley Bochek
Amber Debnam of Churchbridge is beginning her journey in medicine as a medical student at the University of Saskatchewan College of Medicine, and recently received her white coat at the White Coat Ceremony at the Conexus Arts Centre in Regina.
About 120 first-year medical students received their white coats that day. With family members and faculty there were 1,000 people at the ceremony to see Amber receive her white coat.
Debnam says that new options for medical graduates to complete their residency in Saskatchewan, including the Southeast Family Medicine Residency Program in Moosomin, played a part in her decision to enter medicine.
She is determined to become a family doctor and stay in rural Saskatchewan, providing health care to rural communities.
Following is an interview with Debnam:
Tell me a little bit about yourself.
I am from Churchbridge which is not too far away. I am from a cattle and grain farm, and I would love to eventually go back, and I just love the small towns. As soon as I graduated high school, I did my undergrad at the U of S in Saskatoon and did it in the biochemistry, microbiology, and immunology program. It was really good and fun, and I did an honors project as well, so that was basically a research project. That was four years and then I worked for a little bit. Before starting medicine, I did pharmacy in Saskatoon as well.
Why did you decide to go into medicine?
I’ve always wanted to become a doctor or work in healthcare in general, but at the time I was in pharmacy so I had to make a hard choice because I loved pharmacy as well, but just the fact that being a doctor means you can help people anywhere and be more involved with the care made me lean toward that. Also, growing up in Churchbridge there weren’t many family doctors that stayed very long so it was always super hard for everyone to rely on their doctors, and just having to start over all the time which can be very tough and frustrating. That was the main reason why I chose to become a doctor.
When did you switch from pharmacy to becoming a doctor?
I just finished first year of pharmacy this past April and then went straight into medicine—we started at the end of July. So, it was a pretty quick transition.
What about the Southeast Family Medicine Residency Program made you interested in possibly doing your residency there?
The Moosomin site is not far from home and in a rural area which is where I want to be a doctor someday—in a rural community. I know some people there as well and I have been to Moosomin a few times so I think it would be a great fit for me and would help the people in Moosomin and surrounding area. I think it would be a great place to start as I want to go into rural practice as well. I also did hear it is a very good site to learn at, so that also appeals to me to go there after these next few years.
It definitely would have been a harder choice to make that switch without that residency program close to home, just because I did like pharmacy as well and I was already in it. I would have probably just hoped that by the time I was in my residency that there would be some other programs in rural communities—they are amazing to have. The residency site in Moosomin made the choice much easier to decide if I wanted to go into medicine or stay in pharmacy.
How does choosing your residency placement work?
It is a bit of a complex process. As far as I know, you have to match with someone, so I will tell them that I would like to do my residency at a certain site, but then the Southeast Family Medicine Residency Program has to interview me and decide if they want me as well. It goes both ways. I don’t know a lot about it yet because it is still a little bit down the road since I am only in first year at the moment and you match with programs in fourth year. It is nice to know that Moosomin could potentially want me as part of their program eventually. So hopefully down the road it will work out.
I am very excited about the next few years. So far medicine has been very exciting, it is a lot and you kind of get thrown into real life situations and roll with it, but it has been very fun.
Why do you think it is important to have residency programs available in smaller communities like Moosomin?
It is needed for sure. I think because there is a lot of great things about small towns and smaller communities that people don’t always know about. The people in the towns are just so nice and they want to help each other all the time and I just think if there are opportunities for doctors to learn and see what it is like to live and work in a small town, that would just help them choose to stay and maybe then we will hopefully have more doctors who want to stay long term in our rural communities. Healthcare is needed all over the place, so I think it is amazing they have all these residency programs in smaller sites.
Do you think there is a different learning experience at the smaller residency sites compared to the cities?
From what I know they try to standardize it of course, but I think if you are in a smaller site you get to see the same people more often—not just patient-wise, but co-workers as well. Anything can happen though obviously, so you still see every sort of situation. Personally though, I would be excited to see the same people in terms of colleagues working there, whereas I think in the city you just see more turnover.
What are your goals and next steps?
So you apply to get into residency programs in your fourth year, but you do have to finish four years total before you start and I would like—at this point—to do family medicine and maybe internal medicine which is pretty similar, one just works more in the community and one more in the hospital.
I am leaning more to family medicine, and that program you can start as soon as you are done your fourth year, and at this point, that is two more years.
Then, after that you are on your own for the most part. I would like to then go back home or be around home and Moosomin isn’t that far away as well—so just stay in that general area and serve rural communities. The smaller the better.
Do you think Saskatchewan needs to offer more residency programs in more rural communities?
Yes, I think it is a great idea or at least have smaller towns or programs spread out throughout the province. I get it is hard, but just the fact they have a new program in Yorkton starting up now just shows we need more. I think it is appealing to a lot of people who grew up in smaller communities or want to experience different communities in the province and the smaller town life.
Why do you want to become a doctor and what is your biggest motivation to become one?
For the most part, it is to help people and be there consistently for them.
I have heard of how hard it is to start over with a new doctor all the time because there is a lot of background and work with it.
I would like to practice medicine in a rural community because doctors can be really hard to come by, especially ones that stay for longer than six months or short periods.
I just want to help people because I see and I know how hard it can be to be sick or to be worried about a loved one who is sick, or even how hard it is to just access health when you have to go so far.
So, I would just like to help with that and be a doctor my community can rely on. Then, a bonus of maybe working in rural communities as well is you’re very independent as a doctor and so it is just nice to be involved with all health avenues.
