Completed M.D from China, wish to practice meds in CA

[Guest A Confused man]

Hi, a friend of mine completed his med school M.D in China, and now he wishes to come to CA to practice meds. We've done lots of search but still quite confused.

We've looked at the list of World Directory of Medical Schools which are recognized in Canada for eligiblility applying for MCC exams. Then I made a phone call to MCC in Ottawa to ensure that our information is correct, and they told me the same thing as I have been doing.

However we've read some of the articles about foreign meds can't practice in Canada which is not what I was told from MCC. What MCC told me was

1. Get ur diploma recognized first

2. apply for MCC I and II examinations

3. Apply residency in Canada

4. Immigration issues

 

I'm still quite confused how this works. cuz what I've read is diff from what I was told. So? Anyone can help me with " is my friend 100% sure to be able to practice meds in CA by completing what procedures? Thanx

[Guest Carolyn]

Sorry - I can't be a of lot of help because I am not anything close to official -- however, as I understand it is not impossible but it is very very difficult as your friend would be one of thousands of foreign MDs applying for the residency positions -- this is where many people find it difficult to become able to practice.

[Guest Ian Wong]

I would side with the MCC. Ultimately, they are the ones who know about the licensing of doctors in Canada. For more information regarding residencies in Canada, you can visit the website of the Canadian Residency Matching Service, or CaRMS for short.

 

www.carms.ca

 

As Carolyn has previously mentioned, it is very difficult for a foreign med graduate to get a residency via CaRMS simply due to the shortage of residency spots and the number of FMG applicants. There are cases of some fully trained and practicing physicians coming to Canada without needing to redo a residency (from South Africa, for one), because their training is recognised as being equivalent to Canada's. This is probably not the case with Chinese med schools.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3

[Guest A Confused man]

Hi thanx for replying. So the problem now is not so much the licence problem since they told me everyone with M.D diploma can apply to write it; however, what pulls the leg is the "residency" in Canada, right ? I'm not familiar with medical system I am wondering even though you do have the licence from MCC exam you still need 3~5 yr residency training to practice med in Canada right ?....Or as long as you complete the licence exam then you r on ur way ? And I'm so afraid that what MCC told me is quite different what the reality is since they wont tell you it's very difficult to get a spot of residency since they encourage you to write the MCC to make $1000 dollars admission fee on it...they wont tell you that it's impossible to practice residency afterward........

still confused..here...thanx for help

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

When a friend of mine (a fully-qualified Ob/Gyn) from the UK was planning to come here to start a life with her (Canadian) husband she had to pass the Canadian and provincial exams. Although she did pass the Canadian exam, and was about to write the provincial (Ontario) exam, she would still have had to complete at least 4 of the 5 years of Obs/Gyn residency--basically start from scratch. Added to that, there was no guarantee that she could secure a spot within that residency.

 

I don't know if the situation remains the same (the above was true ~2 years ago).

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Jase133]

I have a question regarding the cARMs matching. Looking at the website it appears that there are always some spots left over. Why simply not apply to these spots and get in somewhere in Canada?

[Guest Ian Wong]

There aren't that many spots available. Here's the outlook for IMG's when matching into the second round of CaRMS.

 

www.carms.ca/stats/stats21.htm#imgs2nd

 

This last year, 15.5% of IMG's did match into a residency, and the following table does show some unfilled positions even after the second round was complete. I can only assume that those seats were either withdrawn from the match, or perhaps candidates to fill those spots were taken from outside of the match, again removing those seats from accessibility by IMG's.

 

Certainly, if those seats could have been filled by IMG's, there would have been no shortage of IMG's willing to take on those residencies.

 

Ian

UBC, Med 3