Hi Paul,

I am getting a bit upset after reading this thread of post, the same feeling it gives to me after reading those topics on www.img.org.uk , the website for foreign trained medical doctors willing to work in Canada.

You probably would like to review your motivation for migrating to Canada because we may face a huge change in our life if not prepared ahead, especially in respect of profession. As a matter of fact a professional suicide is not affordable to everyone, at least to me, after have been in this area for more than 10 years, it’s already a part of my life. Take care, be aware and well prepared.

However, it is NOT impossible. The pathway to get in to medicine again in Canada with a foreign qualification can be outlined as the follows: take MCCEE (Multi choice questions) first (www.mcc.ca) maybe you can get it done in London. Then MCCQE1 (Almost the same as MCCEE), MCCQE2 (Clinical), eventually go through the Royal college exams for your specialty.

I applied the Canadian PR last year and I did the MCCEE exam as my first step to qualify my medical career in Canada while I was required to land in Canada to complete the whole immigration procedure. The exam was not a very difficult and I am sure you can do it. I would be happy to share the information that may be of help if you wish.

At this time point after MCCEE I understand I am qualified to compete the Residency positions through CaRMS (Canadian Residency Matching Systems, www.carms.ca) to be qualified to work as a resident in most provinces except Ontario and Quebec where they have their own systems. For example OIMG in Ontario (http://www.library.utoronto.ca/medicine/oimg/) . I was told that BC is the most conservative province against foreign trained professionals. Alberta requires your pass MCCQE1 at the time of matching. The successful match rate is pretty low for International medical graduates (IMG) probably it was 10% in 2003. Once you get matched, you need to pass the MCCQE1 and MCCQE2 during the meantime of your 3-5 year residency as other Canadian graduates would also do. Basically you will work in the medical school hospitals as a resident til you pass the specialty exam, such as Royal Canadian College of Physicians and Surgeon to become a FRCCPS, namely a Physician or Surgeon, or in general a specialist.

Besides this 10-15% success rate for being matched through the national round-CaRMS, most provinces also have their own alternative programs aiming to provide foreign doctors to remote areas as GP (its called FM in Canada). I am pretty sure there are such sort of thing in BC, Alberta, Manitoba and Nova Scotia.

So there ARE opportunities and pathways, but all require hard work to prepare the exams and to go through the training progress. Don’t be disappointed as it is actually the fact anywhere in the world-- the attitude towards foreign trained professionals: an Australian doctor who was one of my friends went to the UK, where you are from, and he was asked to take an English language test namely IELTS first before allowed to go any further, at least they would not ask you to sit TOEFL in Canada.

There are some advantages for being an UK trained doctor, the previleges also apply to those trained in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The Canadian royal colleges recognise the fellowships from other royal colleges in those above-mentioned countries. For example, if you are a member of Royal College of Physician (in UK), you can go straight to the Royal Canadian College exams without doing residency (So without doing the MCCQE exams). If you really want to practice in Canada in the future and would not mind to stay in the UK to complete the specialty training, why don’t you wait for a few years? An example for you: the head of my dept at this University in Australia went to Montreal and he is still the head in the same area without any hassle. He is a graduate from London and his clinical experiences are certainly from UK and Australia.

Migrating to Canada as a doctor is also not an easy thing to do so that it comes your curious that "you are absolutely convinced that there will be a way through these barriers". I applied as a medical lab technologist as I know it is almost impossible to apply as a doctor. Once you finalise that bureaucratic application, nobody cares what you do over there, I think that’s why there are guys delivering pizzas after migrating to Canada as engineers.

Right now I am not entitle to say too much about Canada as I only went there for a month with 2 purposes: finalise landing procedure and take the medical council exam. I will apply for 2004 entry residency in Nova Scotia by Next Jan, I will then let you know if I can get in or not if we still keep in touch.

I have spent 3 years here in Australia by doing a PhD, and it has convinced me that things are a lot easier and much pleasure for a foreign trained doctor in Australia, especially those from the UK. To be qualified, you also need to go through the exams, in Australia it is AMCQ and Clinical for full registration. However, passing AMCQ only will enable you to find a position in the hospital for residency and further specialty training upon you pass of Clinical exam. I also did the AMCQ exam and got a good result, I would say I have been guaranteed a position in residency already although I have half a year to go before completing my PhD.

Paul, if you are after a warmer place to live by considering BC is a lot warmer than Scotland, I would like to suggest that Sydney and Brisbane are much liveable than Vancouver. If you still think they are not warm enough, here we’ve also got Cairns, beautiful beach and sunny yearly around, where I wish to work next year.

Wish you think it over before making any move, and go ahead after planning everything. Aim the moon, even if we fail, we will land among the stars—To deal with the problems is our job as doctors, isn’t it?

Good luck.

Tom

(you guys have to excuse my English if I’ve made any mistakes)