Increasing wait times across Canada etc.

[brolias]

Given the increasing wait times for all aspects of medicine across Canada, what are people's thoughts on licensing of international trained graduates? Will the rules change or become more lax?

[shikimate]

If you read the news you'll realize the provincial colleges are all over the place for licensing. They play by a very inflexible and bureaucratic book. For example someone who did 3 year IM in USA and have good practice record cannot practice GIM here because it's 4 years here. 

And you should remember colleges are not run by medical societies or politicians or the public or health authorities or hospital boards or pharma companies. They are in an enclave of their own. Therefore it is actually very difficult to compel them to change the way they do things.

Just think about when you call a customer service # for a problem that you believe is an easy fix but have to go through 3 different departments without anyone able to fix it. That's the state of things.

[Edict]

16 hours ago, brolias said:

Given the increasing wait times for all aspects of medicine across Canada, what are people's thoughts on licensing of international trained graduates? Will the rules change or become more lax?

I don't think the issue is not enough doctors, its not enough nurses and other resources. Any shortage of doctors could probably easily be remedied with opening up a few extra IMG residency slots. Canada has an incredible amount of talent, our immigration system is the envy of the world, so there really isn't a need to bring in IMGs. The other issue is that we really don't have quality control, medical training varies wildly across the world. In some countries, medical school isn't a desirable job and it isn't very competitive, we need good QC in order to ensure we get good quality of care throughout Canada. Canada's healthcare system and the trust the public has in physicians is predicated on a high Canadian influenced standard of care. The government wants it so that the public doesn't need to feel the need to doctor shop or travel long distances for "quality care".