Canada is short of doctors — and it's turning away hundreds of home-grown physicians each year
CBC
The country's health-care system is suffering from an acute shortage of doctors — even as hundreds of qualified Canadian physicians trained abroad are turned away each year because of a tangle of red-tape and bias, experts say.
Canada is passing up a chance to add hundreds of these Canadian doctors to a strained system because, critics say, tight-fisted provincial governments have restricted the number of residency spots — and because the system explicitly privileges students who went to Canadian medical schools.
According to census data, there's no shortage of doctors in Canada. What we have is a shortage of licensed doctors.
While estimates vary, there may be as many as 13,000 medical doctors in Canada who are not practising because they haven't completed a two-year residency position — a requirement for licensing.
Critics of the system say discrimination is pervasive.
"There is a 'don't come home attitude' in Canada," said Rosemary Pawliuk, president of the Society for Canadians Studying Medicine Abroad.
"They have cute slogans like, 'You're wanted and welcome in Canada,' but when you look at the barriers, it's very clear that you should not come home. Their message is essentially, 'Go away.' And so they do."
Under Canadian regulations, medical schools themselves decide who gets a residency. Critics say those schools have a vested interest in seeing Canadian-educated students get as many of those positions as possible — leaving those Canadians trained at reputable schools abroad at a serious disadvantage.
Critics say the system is designed to ensure that every graduate of a Canadian medical school — no matter how competent they are — is licensed to practice medicine. Only a relatively small number of underperformers are weeded out each year.
The same cannot be said for home-grown doctors who go overseas.
"The physicians running these departments want the best — but that's not allowed. They're not allowed to pick from the full pool of qualified applicants," said Pawliuk.
About 90 per cent of all residencies are set aside each year for Canadian medical graduates. Internationally trained doctors get the rest.
In some provinces, domestic medical school graduates and those educated abroad can't compete against one another — there are two separate pools, and the one reserved for international medical graduates is much smaller.
According to data from the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS), 1,661 international medical graduates (IMGs) applied for residency positions in Canada last year. Just 439 were matched with the necessary post-graduate training. That's a "match rate" of just 26 per cent.