Medical schools in Ontario didn't want her. So this aspiring family doctor is training in the U.S.

University of Waterloo biology graduate Katie Walker had her eyes set on medical schools in Ontario, but after two application rounds and rejections from four separate schools, the 24-year-old picked up and moved to the United States to pursue her dream of becoming a family doctor.

Her story of losing out in a highly competitive admissions process has renewed calls to reform a Canadian system that experts say isn't adequately responding to a critical need for family doctors.

"You're a little bit of a number," said Walker of the medical school application process. "It's hard to kind of be able to display your personality and your goals." 

Had Walker been able to progress to the interview round of the application process, she would have told them why she's interested in family medicine.

"The connections there are just really impressive to me," she said. "Being able to learn people's stories, and help them and learn about their families and guide them through their health journeys over the years is something that's really appealing to me.

"If I had been able to get to the interview point for more schools, I feel like it would have gone a little bit better," she said.

Walker had an 85 per cent undergrad average, an 88 percentile score on the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT), and nearly 12 months of experience working as a medical secretary at a clinic in Cambridge, Ont.

But it wasn't enough.

Four schools — Western University in London, McMaster University in Hamilton, the University of Toronto and Queen's University in Kingston — rejected Walker's application, twice, in 2021 and in 2022.

This spring, the Ontario government announced it would be adding 160 new undergraduate seats and 295 postgraduate seats at medical schools across the province over five years.

Western University's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry admits 171 students to its MD program each year: 133 in London and 38 at its Windsor campus.

"Significant changes to the medical school admissions process have taken place over the last several years," said Western University spokesperson Crystal Mackay, "specifically focused on mitigating barriers for underrepresented populations within medicine, such as those who self-identify as racialized, those from low socioeconomic backgrounds and those from rural or remote areas."

The school also puts more focus on non-academic traits now too, she said.

READ | A portion of the letter Walker received from Western in 2021: