Foreign doctors take up more medical residency spots as Canadians struggle to get in – CBC

The number of foreign ‘visa trainees’ in medical residency is up 70 per cent since 2019

Oct 08, 2023

Canada has an acute shortage of doctors — a staffing crisis that is expected to get much worse in the years ahead as the number of residency positions on offer fails to keep up with rapid population growth.

Despite those challenges, roughly 1,000 Canadian doctors who went to school abroad are turned away every year because they can’t get residency spots in Canada, according to a CBC News review of medical school data. Physicians are required to go through a residency in order to be licensed to practice.

Canadian doctors who want to come home to work are routinely told it’s not possible because resources are limited and there are only so many residency positions to go around.

But the medical schools that run residency programs still find room for foreign nationals from countries like Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia — people who frequently have no intention of staying here to work over the long term.

Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/foreign-nationals-medical-residency-canadians-struggle-1.6988983