They study abroad for various reasons including the fact that they can directly enter medical school without having to do undergraduate degrees or because they haven’t been successful at securing a highly coveted spot at one of Canada’s 17 medical schools. born and bred citizens who graduate from medical schools outside Canada each year. Another source of funding, she said, is the Canadian military which “cannot deploy troops to places where there is a need for Canadian troops because of a lack of physicians.”Ĭurrently, the military only accepts medical graduates from Canadian schools, she said, not Canadian international medical graduates from schools that are deemed to have equivalent curricula. In a letter she sent this week to leaders of the UBC medical school, she said there are other ways to make up the lost revenue caused by the departure of the Saudis. She said she knows of private corporations and municipalities that would fund residency positions. Mostly, she’s hoping that Canadian medical schools open the door wider to Canadian graduates of international medical schools who are eager to return to Canada. But she’s hoping the dispute will force medical faculties and governments to re-evaluate the situation so that Canadians are not at the mercy of other countries’ political whims. Rosemary Pawliuk, p resident of the Vancouver-based Society for Canadians Studying Medicine Abroad, said there’s no question there will be a gap after the exodus of the Saudis. This fact has long been a thorn in the side of such Canadian medical graduates doctors whose children have studied abroad have been among the most vocal critics of the system. born and bred graduates get no preferential treatment they have to compete in the international pool.
while other medical school graduates have to clamour for under 400 publicly funded residency positions, including just 58 for international medical graduates. and international medical graduates each year.Ĭritics of the postgraduate training program have long complained that doctors from Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Persian Gulf states can essentially buy their post-doctoral training in B.C. taxpayers pay the costs of residency training for hundreds of B.C. The training is sponsored by Middle Eastern nations ($100,000 per doctor) while by comparison, B.C. and most of the other medical schools across Canada have long had an arrangement with Saudi Arabia and other wealthy Middle Eastern nations to offer specialized training and clinical experience to these doctors who essentially pay their own way while learning, providing patient care and even teaching undergraduates. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.