Surgeon/Internist/Oncologist moving from U.S to Canada possible?

[Blitz2006]

Whats the deal if I do my residency in the U.S (ie, General Surgery 5 years, Medical Oncologist 3+3 with fellowship after IM) and then decide I want to work as an attending in Canada. Is this possible?


I heard that its quite tough to get the Royal College of Physicians to license you, as well as getting the provincial college (ie, CPSO) to license you. True?

Will doing the USMLE Step 1-3 suffice, or will MCCQE1 and 2 have to be written?

Basically, can an American trained doctor (and in my case, UK M.D.) work in Canada?

Cheers,

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[O2Doc]

Whats the deal if I do my residency in the U.S (ie, General Surgery 5 years, Medical Oncologist 3+3 with fellowship after IM) and then decide I want to work as an attending in Canada. Is this possible?


I heard that its quite tough to get the Royal College of Physicians to license you, as well as getting the provincial college (ie, CPSO) to license you. True?

Will doing the USMLE Step 1-3 suffice, or will MCCQE1 and 2 have to be written?

Basically, can an American trained doctor (and in my case, UK M.D.) work in Canada?

Cheers,

Your best bet is to contact the provincial licensing bodies directly. US-trained doctors can generally be licensed easily enough if board-certified; in fact

The Canadian Information Centre for International Medical Graduates defines an IMG as “a physician who received a medical degree outside of an [accredited] Canadian medical school, or outside of an [accredited] United States medical school.”

Your MD is from the UK, but Canada's special relationship with the UK might mean they'd recognise the MD without extra evaluation. The mcc website has a link to which schools are recognized.

Here's an info page in IMG licensing. Note that it says

"If IMGs have obtained Canadian or American board specialty certification, they may apply to the Medical Council of Canada for an exemption from the MCCEE."

And once exemption is obtained, the province's licensing body may or may not require additional testing (QE1 and 2).​

 

[Blitz2006]

Damn, thx for taking the time with that response.

Yeh I emailed CPSO/RCPC last year, its bit of a grey area, but basically they said that if your training is equal in length, you can get licensed...but appears to be bit of a hassle....

Just wondering if anyone on this forum has done it,

Your best bet is to contact the provincial licensing bodies directly. US-trained doctors can generally be licensed easily enough if board-certified; in fact

Your MD is from the UK, but Canada's special relationship with the UK might mean they'd recognise the MD without extra evaluation. The mcc website has a link to which schools are recognized.

Here's an info page in IMG licensing. Note that it says


And once exemption is obtained, the province's licensing body may or may not require additional testing (QE1 and 2).​

 

[Handsome88]

Damn, thx for taking the time with that response.

Yeh I emailed CPSO/RCPC last year, its bit of a grey area, but basically they said that if your training is equal in length, you can get licensed...but appears to be bit of a hassle....

Just wondering if anyone on this forum has done it,

I hear that in some provinces all you have to do is work under light supervision of a doctor for something like 18 months (not really a problem)...But I'm not quite sure exactly. Shouldn't be too hard though, specially in 6 years things will change.

 

[O2Doc]

Most likely your training will be recognized, with some paperwork and possibly some 'supervision'.

But if you're pretty early into residency, why not write the Canadian exams too? My friends who intended to practice south of the border all wrote the USMLEs alongside their MCCQEs.

 

[tussy]

Why would you do internal medicine and medical oncology after doing general surgery? You could do a 2 year surgical oncology fellowship instead. Most people would do either the medicine route or the surgical route. Both makes no sense.

Shouldn't be a problem to go from US to Canada. MCCQE isn't difficult and would make sense to do it during residency if you want to come to canada for sure.