For doctors who want to come to Canada...

So, in light of everything that is happening in the Spanish health system:

A number of people have expressed interest in coming to Canada to practice. I can understand why - one of the main topics you hear in the news every week is that Canada doesn't have enough doctors, especially primary care physicians.  That made me wonder: if there are so many qualified doctors in other parts of the world, and there's a lack of doctors in Canada, what's the problem? What isn't working?

I started investigating things a couple of weeks ago and this is what I found. I'll also add a section about what I don't know at the bottom, and I'll post an update once I get the information:

a) If your medical school has been approved by the World Health Organization (WHO), they will be able to provide you with a certificate that your medical school certification meets world standards.

b) Once you receive that certificate, you are required to establish professional competence by writing the Medical Council of Canada Evaluating Exam (MCCEE), which compares what you've learnt to what Canadian medical school graduates would be expected to know. The exam tests your knowledge in internal medicine, ob/gyn, paediatrics, psychiatry and surgery. These exams are held every March and September and are offered in Canada and other countries. (See Note 1 below.)

c) Once you've successfully completed the MCCEE, you may (depending on which province you want to practice in) need to do a twelve-month residency program (whether this HAS to be in Canada or can be completed outside of Canada, I don't know.) There are thirteen post-graduate medical programs that accept foreign candidates (this is organized by the Canadian Resident Matching Service, here in Ottawa) It's not entirely clear from the information what kind of numbers we're talking about - how many they accept per year, whether that is a fixed number of residents or if it changes depending on need, and if certain specialties are given priority.

d) Depending on your speciality (and the province you end up in), you may be required to write supplementary exams. (May.)

Now, all that said, there's still a lot of stuff I don't know:
1. I don't know if you have to have any kind of English certification!!
2. I don't know how many potential candidates this could involve and I don't know how doctors are selected.
3. I don't know how much time this actually means - if you start the process now, I don't know how long you would have to wait, what with all the exams and everything.

So the good news is that it's not impossible.

The bad(-ish) news is that it seems to be a system that heavily favours exams.

I'll keep adding news as I find more out. Feel free to pass this on to anyone who might be interested. I'm not sure how much help I'll be able to provide, but I'll give you all the information I can find.

(Note 1: I haven't figured out where, exactly, the MCCEE is held outside of Canada. I would assume that they *should* offer it in Madrid, but it may mean going to London or Paris. I also need to find out what the registration process is and how far in advance you need to register for the exam, how much it costs, stuff like that.)

"Now it's their country, it must be their language, too."

BCNPaul just posted a link from The Telegraph (London) about how new immigrants to the UK - and the writer specifically mentions Spain by name - need to have a workable level of English if they decide to move to another country.

Obviously, I'm posting this because I really do feel that, if you're going to move to an English-speaking country, you'd better have a decent level of English. The article also makes me think of another point: Most of the immigrants who have come to Spain in the last ten years have either been from Spanish-speaking countries (Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela....) or have made a point of learning Spanish (I'm thinking especially of the Poles and Chinese.) This makes me think of what Ludwig Wittgenstein once said: The limits of my language are the limits of my world.

Trust me: Moving to another country is terrifying enough. Wherever you go, make sure that you do everything you can not to be isolated. You don't need to integrate fully into the culture, but you do yourself no favors by purposely isolating yourself from it.

Another reason to get working on your English...

...if you're not from an EU country, and need a visa to study in the United Kingdom, you won't be given one if your English isn't good enough.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/mar/22/number-foreign-students-to-be-cut

Now, in all fairness, they ARE allowing more people to go in on short-term visas to study English at academies, but if you want a university education and need to go for more than eleven months, you're going to have a harder time.

Sad but true.

Heading to Canada? Avoid M.T.V....

....Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, that is. The New York Times has an article today about how smaller Canadian cities are welcoming immigrants from all over the world:

http://tinyurl.com/36ptrsn

New Horizons

One thing I found this summer is that there are a LOT of people who want to improve their English so that they can leave Spain and find work in different countries.

If you're thinking about doing the same, but you feel a little guilty about doing it, take heart - it's not just happening in Spain. The BBC's Business Daily programme has an excellent documentary about Irish professionals who are forced to do the same:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00b3lfw

...and while we're on the topic of English and immigration...

...I had a chance to talk to my friend Nancy over the weekend. Nancy is a program officer with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and she confirmed that yes, indeed, people who want to immigrate to Canada should do the IELTS exam, just as before.

There is some talk about introducing a new exam, but that's not for another year, and candidates who want to apply now should and can do the IELTS to show how well they can speak and work with English.

Life (and immigration) isn't always fair

One thing that's surprised me a lot this month is that I'm getting calls from a lot of people who want to improve their English...because they want to leave Spain and go live in another country. If you're among them, be warned that Canada now has new rules about language proficiency. These rules do not necessarily help people who have already achieved a high level of English... like, you know... English literature professors from the United States!

http://tinyurl.com/2cbf45y

I have a friend who works for CIC, the Immigration authority. I'll see if I can find some more information about the exam.