Pathway to Practice Medicine in Canada

Canada is a beautiful country to live in but it is the worst country for a foreign doctor who wants to be a practicing physician. I am not here to demotivate you, I am just telling the fact. You can pass the exams but there is no guarantee to get into residency position. Hence, may be at the end of the day you will never be a practicing physician in Canada after spending huge amount of money and time. However, still we have to try if we are already in Canada because if we do not try, there is 100% chance that we cannot practice medicine here.

There are several pathways to become a practicing physician in Canada but today I am only writing about CARMS pathway as I am using this pathway. I will write about other pathways when I will know better.

This pathway looks simple but it is complicated in different ways. It will cost you not only huge amount of money, but also mental peace and time. But if you are successful, you will get a respectful, better and secured life for you and your family in Canada. Therefore, we should be positive during this whole journey.

The most crucial part of this journey is getting the right information. I suffered a lot just to get some information. I wasted my two years to gather all the information before starting this journey. My journey would be more easier if I could find someone reliable who would explain it properly. I started my journey without knowing the whole pathway. I am still learning but I am ready to help everyone by providing the right information that I gathered over the last two years.

Lets start with examination part. Before applying for residency training, you need to pass two exams (MCCQE1 and NAC OSCE). However, you can take them in any order. You do not need to have Permanent Residency for taking this exams. For application process, you should have an account in physicianapply.ca where you have to verify your medical degree and other degrees or training if you have any. There are several charges for it. 

After passing these two exams now you are ready to apply for CARMS if you have Permanent Residency in Canada. CARMS is Canadian Resident Matching Service. Usually, matching occurs 2 times in a year. Before COVID situation, the application deadline for first matching/first iteration was in  November and second iteration was in March for remaining seats.

There are few more additional examinations that you need to complete for CARMS application:

1. IELTS academic, must have 7 in each module ( If your medical College education and/or patient care is not in English)

2. CASPER test ( Few universities require it)

3. MMI ( to apply for British Columbia by BC CAP and Alberta)

If you are lucky plus you have a great CV with Canadian experience, high score, recency of practice, interview skill etc., you might get a residency spot. 

International Medical Graduates cannot apply for all specialties like Canadian Medical Graduates. There are very limited seats in limited specialties for IMGs such as Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Emergency Medicine, Obstetric and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Psychiatry etc. Among them the highest seats are for Family Medicine. IMGs need to sign Return of Service if they get residency training position (for most of the programs). It means they are bound to serve for particular period of time to the rural or under serviced areas of Canada after finishing their training.

That is all for today. I tried to write it down briefly to give you a basic idea. To learn more you can check following links.

https://physiciansapply.ca/

https://mcc.ca/

https://www.carms.ca/

https://imgbc.med.ubc.ca/clinical-assessment/

https://takecasper.com/

Thank you for reading it. Feel free to ask any questions in comment section below. See you soon in another post.