Recognition of Foreign Medical Credentials in Canada and the EU

Abstract

The thesis presents research on recognition of physician credentials both in Canada and the European Union (EU). The research is concerned with three issues: licensure of international medical graduates (IMGs) in Canada, physicians´ mobility across Canadian jurisdictions, and physicians´ mobility within the EU. The main objective is to discover shortcomings in the Canadian system of qualification recognition and find out whether the EU experience has anything to offer to Canada´s labour mobility system. To achieve this aim, both interviews with representatives of Canadian medical organizations and web-based research were conducted.

From the obtained information three distinct conclusions became obvious: (1) the barriers IMGs experience when they pursue a medical licence in Canada are not caused by purposeful discrimination or unfair treatment by regulatory bodies rather, they are a result of the absence of appropriate tools for assessment of IMGs´ credentials; (2) the revised Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT) did not eliminate inter-provincial barriers to mobility of physicians as expected; nevertheless, it led to a far more comprehensive approach - development of a national licensure standard; (3) although the EU took a different approach to accomplishing full labour mobility of physicians than Canada, the result turned out to be very similar - automatic recognition of physicians´ qualifications based on minimum education and training requirements. The EU has been on this path for almost half a century now, therefore, Canada should examine the EU experience and develop mechanisms that proved to facilitate the process of automatic recognition in the EU.