Ismelda Ramirez says she never expected to swap her white doctor’s coat for a McDonald’s uniform. Despite training as a family doctor in the Dominican Republic, she ended up working at the fast-food chain for eight months after she moved to Quebec in 2022.
She’s one of thousands of internationally trained physicians, or ITPs, living in Canada, the vast majority of whom are not working as doctors, according to advocacy groups.
Despite changes to the process aimed at increasing the number of internationally trained doctors working in Canada, ITPs still face significant hurdles including navigating a complex system, a lack of opportunities and requirements that force some to temporarily leave the country.
Not all degrees are created equal. Many 3rd countries have subpar med schools. I wouldn’t want a subpar doctor treating me.
So there’s a balance, how much do you lower the requirements?
I work under several foreign trained engineers, the quality of their work is absolutely unacceptable and has cost ridiculous sums of money. Anyone who intends to work in Canada in a job which requires a degree or years of training should be examined with just as much scrutiny as Canadian students.
Anecdote != evidence but god damnt, if you can’t find 1000 stories exactly like mine.
I’m American, but when I deal with code from H1Bs, foreign trained workers, that quality is atrocious. Indian education is much oriented to rote memorization and not critical thinking like in most western countries. You can really see the effects in their work.
You can still streamline the process and make it so that it’s not one size fits all. You can have bilateral agreements of credentials recognition. There is no reason for example an Italian trained doctor (anecdotal story I happen to know) would have to go back to med school to practice in Canada.
I remember listening to CBC many many years ago talking about this same thing…sad to think that this hasn’t been resolved :(
It will never be resolved. Most provincial healthcare programs are heading towards insolvency and the aging boomer demographic will push many of them over the edge.
Maybe they would have been fine if they’d signed onto the agreement to only spend the extra billions Trudeau gave them on healthcare, instead of whinging like a bunch of Karens.
