CPSO Removes barriers for international physicians

[Pakoon]

Just wanted to start a discussion on these new changes made by the CPSO and what it means for family physicians in Ontario, especially with talks about FM going to 3 years of residency. 

 

https://www.cpso.on.ca/News/News-Articles/CPSO-Removes-Barriers-for-Internationally-Educated

[medafter30]

On 4/6/2023 at 12:23 AM, Pakoon said:

Just wanted to start a discussion on these new changes made by the CPSO and what it means for family physicians in Ontario, especially with talks about FM going to 3 years of residency. 

 

https://www.cpso.on.ca/News/News-Articles/CPSO-Removes-Barriers-for-Internationally-Educated

Do you think this might change the landscape of job availability in Ontario? and how would this work for GIM as GIM for Canada is 4 years at least while US is 3 years ? 

[shikimate]

From my experience visa is always a bigger issue than licensing. To get immigration there has to be labor market impact assessment and all kinds of hoops. How many US citizens are willing to go through that? hard to say.

Also US citizens are well aware of the high taxes, expensive real estate and weak canadian dollar. 

[carms2tee2tee3]

Probably won't change too much change. There's not much incentive to move to Canada from those countries unless you have family here. I have heard of many of my preceptors talking about wanting to move to the states and Australia. 

[indefatigable]

I definitely think there will be Canadian citizen IMG/US-trained that will take advantage of this especially in larger disciplines like FM, GIM and ER where Canadian practice conditions have some advantages - e.g. dealing with insurance companies, autonomy, billing and in the case of EM especially saturation & mid-levels on top of family/friends etc.  That said, US citizens won't be very incentivized as mentioned above; however, immigrant IMGs training in the US on a visa might also see this as a good opportunity

I think a lot of this is a result of lobbying by the CSA community - that said I think when people get settled they're less inclined to move back.  

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadian-doctors-trained-abroad-practice-1.6749553

[Neuro-phys]

This is great news!

I went to the US for med school (MD) and did my neurology training/fellowship down south as well. I am dual US/Canadian citizen but much of my family lives in Toronto. So it’s nice that CPSO is relaxing some barriers….
 

Having said that, I am not sure whether my compensation (for my current workload) would stay the same or not. Everything in Canada is fee for service and you are not really salaried. You have to deal with overhead costs. Cost of living is quite high. Taxes are high. You get no benefits typically or employer contributions to your retirement plans. Moreover, I am guessing quite a few jobs will be still off limits as I am not Royal college boarded.  Just considerations I guess.