Canadian-born doctor gets licence to practice here after 17-month fight

A Canadian-born doctor who has been in a protracted battle with medical licensing authorities has finally received the documents she needs to practise medicine in Canada.

Dr. Stephanie DeMarchi, a family doctor who has trained and worked in Australia for the past 10 years, first applied to the Medical Council of Canada (MCC) — the body that evaluates medical graduates and physicians — to have her foreign credentials recognized in April 2022.

What followed was a 17-month wait while the MCC and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), the provincial regulatory body responsible for licensing doctors, reviewed documents such as her university degree, her post-graduate (residency) certificate and resume.

She sat for an hours-long test and haggled with officials who were scrutinizing her blemish-free record from a Commonwealth country with a top-notch health-care system.

At least one document was rejected by the CPSO because of how the date on a reference letter was formatted.

DeMarchi moved her family to her hometown of Hamilton, Ont. in the fall of 2022, thinking the process would be over in a matter of weeks.

In May 2023, she had to move back to Australia to keep her licence from that country active. She left her two children and husband behind in southern Ontario.

CBC News profiled DeMarchi's quest for a Canadian licence at the end of June.

Her licence from the CPSO came through two days after the story was published.

Reached by phone Thursday, DeMarchi said she was relieved to have her licence in hand.

"Can you believe the turnaround time was just 48 hours after the story was published?" DeMarchi told CBC News.

"The CPSO called me the next day and the agent said, 'I'm going to personally see this through.'"

"My journey is over, but what about every other doctor who's trying to be certified and reviewed by the MCC?" she added, referring to the body responsible for source verification of medical credentials in most provinces.

"Especially right now, at this particular time, when there's a massive increase in people who don't have GPs. There are Canadian doctors willing to work and they can't."