Anybody else concerned about the flood of IMGs?

[Guest guy30]

Not entirely. There are specific residency program spots open in the first round to only IMGs. That means Canadians can't apply to them. This is retarded.

 

Wow, let's be clear, everyone applying into CARMS needs to be a Canadian citizen or Permanent Resident so are Canadian (unlike in the US where anyone regardless of citizenship can compete for the same positions).

 

Also, for the often quoted test scores that are the basis of most of the insinuations that IMGs are somehow harming Canadian patients, understand that the scores for Canadian medical students are all based off people currently/recently graduating whereas for the IMG test scores, it is a very diverse group of people from people who are recent grads, been out for ten years, from developed countries like Australia, the US, and the UK to any other developing countries in the world, to people who are fluent in english and those that are not. It is not a homogeneous group and using this as a measure is deeply flawed and no indication of which part of this group actually gets a residency position in CARMS.

 

Everyone has to pass the same exams in the end and go through the same residency (and residency application process so there is no basis for this IMG's having 'connections' theory and somehow bypassing the application process). Undergraduate medical education is largely the same across the world particularly in developed countries (you can only teach anatomy, physiology, pathology etc. so many ways and everyone uses the same text books). The 2 years of clerkship are only an introductory exposure to medicine and it is not until residency that your training really begins.

 

This entire thread seems to be based on a lot of hearsay, false assumptions, and frankly arrogance on an international scope. As a Canadian medical grad, how can you possibly say that we are superior to our colleagues in other developed countries like Australia or countries in Europe? This becomes particularly prevalent as you start attending medical conferences around the world and realize how similar everyone's training is and how much each country has contributed to medical research and education around the world.

 

This becomes even more relevant when you start working in hospital and realize that a large proportion of people who are your bosses and colleagues also have an international education and this nationalistic xenophobia for where you went to medical school becomes even more and more ridiculous. You can't have this kind of small mindedness and expect to work well with others or be seen as an international leader in medical education.

 

Sure there might be slight differences in Canadian specific health education in a Canadian medical school meant specifically for the Canadian population (Canadian ethics, population health, or aboriginal health) but ask yourself honestly, how much of the course does that actually make up and is this not something that Canadians trained abroad, who have grown up or integrated into Canadian society can not easily pick up? Is this not something that can also be easily be picked up in residency while treating Canadian patients? Or does this even really affect ones ability to safely provide clinical care to Canadian standards (no because everyone writes the same exams and does the same residency).

 

Essentially in the end, IMGs are not a homogeneous group and everyone writes the same licensing exams and does the same residency so are all safe to practice medicine in Canada since it is the various College's legal responsibility to ensure that they can do so.