Losing doctors
P.E.I. losing out on doctors from other parts of the world who want to practice here
Full licensure for family physicians in P.E.I. is difficult for individuals who do not have two or more years of experience practising in Canada. As a result, some doctors from outside the country have not been able to work on the Island and have moved on to other provinces.
When Femi Olatunji moved his wife and two children halfway across the globe, he says he believed he could offer a contribution to Prince Edward Island and that he would be able to live life at a slower pace. “I liked the environment,” said Olatunji. “Where I grew up back in Nigeria, I’ve always been a smalltown person. So, I actually chose P.E.I. because it sort of had some semblance to the kind of place I would have loved to grow up.” Olatunji was a family physician in Nigeria. He knew that P.E.I., like other rural regions of Canada, has a huge appetite for rural doctors. Areas such as West Prince have multiple vacancies, and the region has a waiting list of thousands for family doctors. As of May of this year, 9,600 Islanders were on a waiting list for a family physician. Through his research, Olatunji found an organization that would provide a low-interest loan to help defray the costs associated with obtaining the credentials he would need to practise. But, since his arrival in March of 2017, Olatunji has moved away from P.E.I. He found the process for obtaining his credentials as a family physician more difficult than he expected. “I was hoping to make use of the opportunity to get licensure and work there,” Olatunji said, reached by phone in the B.C. city of Prince George. “But I discovered that in P.E.I., unlike some other provinces, they would prefer that the physician has all the licensure and has some family practice experiences in Canada before he or she is able to work.” For Olatunji, the decision to move his family across the country came down to a one program: B.C.’s Practice-Ready Assessment program. Like most regions, full licensure for family physicians in P.E.I. is difficult for individuals who do not have two or more years of experience practising in Canada. But in B.C. the PRA program, whose eligibility requires a 12-week assessment, allows international doctors to obtain their credentials if they commit to a three-year period of service in a rural community. Prince George is a regional hub for the northern region of the province, an area roughly the size of France. Like P.E.I., the positions that are most difficult to fill for the province’s medical system are in rural or remote parts of the region. Many of these regions, in towns such as Vanderhoof or Burns Lake, a community hard hit by the recent wildfires, are home to a number of Indigenous communities. Although programs similar to the PRA exist in Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Quebec, P.E.I. does not have an equivalent program for international physicians.
Not Alone
Like Olatunji, Ufuoma Odunsi moved to P.E.I. believing her skills as a family physician would be in high demand. Coming from the Nigerian capital city of Abuja, Odunsi hoped the Island would offer a more peaceful environment to raise her two children. “I was looking for a country that was going to be quiet and a bit more relaxed, not as much hustle and bustle,” Odunsi said, reached by phone from Toronto, where she is taking a preparatory course for Medical Council of Canada examinations. Odunsi has also found the credentialing process for international medical graduates to be more difficult than she expected. “I knew I needed to do credential upgrading, but I thought it was going to be straightforward,” she said. “Getting here, it was a completely different thing.” Odunsi said she was told that after completing the three main qualifications exams – the Medical Council of Canada Evaluating Exam and the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Exam, parts one and two – she would need to gain two years of medical experience practice in Canada to work on the Island. “So that means I have to go out of the province, get something, work for three years and come back into the province if I want to work,” she said. Odunsi still lives on P.E.I. but has not been able to work. Her husband largely supports her and her two children. In the meantime, she has obtained a micro-loan from the Immigrant Access Fund, a Calgary-based organization that helps international professionals upgrade their credentials to Canadian standards. She is also considering a move out of the province.
Not Straight Forward
Dr. Cyril Moyse, the registrar for the College of Physicians and Surgeons of P.E.I., acknowledges that the process for licensure of international medical professionals is anything but straight-forward. Determining whether international medical professionals have the necessary training and competence is no simple process. Moyse said the standards set by the Medical Council of Canada are now recognized in all provinces as the basis for credentialing, which is a vast improvement from 10 years ago. International physicians who are being considered for a program like the Practice-Ready Assessment program in B.C. can also be evaluated based upon how much supervision they may need from more experienced Canadian physicians once they begin working. The trouble is, with a shortage of doctors on P.E.I., the manpower required for this supervision is hard to come by. “One of the difficulties in P.E.I. is that physicians are stretched. So, they’re stretched again doing the supervision,” Moyse said. Moyse believes doctors working in rural regions often have to be more qualified and versatile than those working in urban areas. As a result, the standards are high. “It’s a privilege to practise medicine. It’s not something you want to test out. You want to make sure somebody has the qualifications and that’s about as good as we can do,” Moyse said. “To make it easier for physicians may work. In other cases, I think it’s a public risk.”
“I knew I needed to do credential upgrading, but I thought it was going to be straightforward.” Ufuoma Odunsi