DrIng said:
Unless you're prepared to do family practice in rural areas. Rural British Columbia have over 60 vacancies for people who are prepared to practice in rural areas and their only requirement is 2 years postgraduate training somewhere with rotations in family medicine, O&G, psychiatry, ED, medicine and surgery (so a basic family med training). And the salaries are none too shabby. So there are ways in depending on what you want to do.
Might need to check the facts well. BC might grant you a temprary license if you postgraduate training is in some specific countries (See the article below). I have several friends in BC who have all the postgraduate training that is needed for countries not on that list and cant get the license. I live in Ontario and I know of hundreds of IMG's who have all the postgraduate training required and would jump at the opportunity to practice in rural BC. Some of these people have tried and always receive the polite response that their postgraduate training is not equivalent to Canadian training. Even if you want to repeat your residency in BC, the government only sponsors 6 IMG's per year for family medicine residency and you will be competing against 100's.
You can have a look at this site which represents IMG's in BC
http://aimd.bcitp.net/
The article below is from the site and it will explian the BC situation.
Straight Talk about Getting a Practice in BC
It is important to understand some diffecult facts if you are an internationally trained medical doctor looking for work in your field in Canada, and specifically in BC.
First, internationally trained medical doctors are not referred to as "medical doctors" or "internationally trained medical doctors". The Canadian medical community refers to these professionals as "International Medical Graduates", or "IMGs". For the sake of clarity, AIMD BC also refers to doctors who are trained outside Canada as "IMGs".
There are a number of different kinds of IMGs in Canada. There are Fellows who come to Canada for a set period of time to gain work experience and advance thier skills. These IMGs work in hospitals and in exchange for the opportunity to expand their knowledge they are paid less than what a licensed Canadian doctor would make for the same work. Once "Fellows" have completed their experience they must return to their countries of origin.
A second group of IMGs in Canada are referred to by the media as "Visa Doctors", for lack of a better term. These IMGs come from countries that pay a premium to Canadian medical universities for post graduate residency training. Again, once the "Visa Doctors" have completed their residency training they must return to their country of origin.
A third group of IMGs are those who immigrate to Canada from a select group of Commonwealth countries. Each province in Canada has different criteria for accepting foreign trained doctors. The College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC (usually referred to as the College), which presides over the licensing of all doctors in British Columbia, has referred to these Commonwealth doctors in the past as "Group A" IMGs.
We have ascertained that England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa are on this so called Group A list for the BC College. Qualified citizens of those countries can practice medicine immediately upon arrival in BC, although it is usually in a rural area. You must successfully complete all the national exams within three years of arriving in Canada. If you are a "Group A" IMG, getting work here is fairly straightforward. (Specialists must first be accepted by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada before being licensed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC.)
The fourth group is made up of those doctors who immigrate to Canada to work and become productive Canadian citezens but who come from other countries outside of the Group A list. These IMGs were referred to as Group B in the past and they must repeat their post graduate training, in Canada, before they can obtain a medical licence. AIMD BC is primarily concerned with addressing the barriers and challenges that concern these doctors in getting recognition and employment in the field of health care. When we at AIMD BC refer to "IMGs", we are actually referring to medical doctors who are trained in countries and/or universities not recognized by the College and who must repeat training in BC.
The Royal College has a list of countries they accept and if you are a specialist then you need to be familiar with this list. (See the 'acceptable' list at the Royal College website). We have asked the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC to provide us with a similar list of countries and/or universities whose training it has accredited and approved for BC, but we have been told that a definitive list does not exist. Instead the BC College asks IMGs to contact it directly. Be prepared to pay a fee to be told whether your residency training is acceptable in BC or not.
If you come from BC's main immigration countires, China, India, the Phillipines, Iran, Eastern Europe, Russia and most other non-English speaking, non-Commonwealth countries, then your education is not recognized in BC and you must re-do your residency training to work as a doctor here. Getting access to a residency is extremely difficult, which is one of the main reasons why AIMD BC has formed.
