New program could open door for foreign-trained dentists
U of S degree completion proposal would help people become qualified to work here
Victoria Auer always wanted to be a dentist.
Her mother, grandfather and uncle were all dentists, and Auer couldn’t imagine being anything else. She spent nine years going to school in her home country of Ukraine, learning how to diagnose and treat tooth problems and other oral issues, then worked in private practice in Kyiv for a decade.
But then she met the man of her dreams online and moved to Canada to be with him. She was not certified to work as a dentist in Canada and had to abandon the career she had worked so hard to achieve.
“Nineteen years of my life, I had to give it up. My best time and now I cannot use it. It’s very stressful,” said Auer, who is 47 and now lives in Saskatoon. “It’s not only about money. It’s about self-esteem, what you have done in life.”
Auer gave birth to her second child shortly after moving to Canada and has been a stay-at-home mom ever since.
“For awhile it’s OK because I was able to take care of my little kid, but now it’s time to move on,” she said.
She hopes a new degree completion program proposed at the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Dentistry will help her do that.
The college is exploring the possibility of launching an International Dental Degree Program that would make it easier for people who studied at international dental schools not accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation of Canada to sit the National Dental Examining Board examination needed to be licensed as a dentist in Canada.
Under the program, up to three students a year would be accepted into the third year of the college’s four-year Doctor of Dental Medicine program. They would complete the final two years of the program, which includes clinical training.
Similar programs are already in place at seven of the 10 dentistry colleges in Canada. The students would pay higher annual tuition than their classmates completing the four-year program. Tuition for students completing the four-year program at the College of Dentistry in 2019 is $35,667 a year; the proposed annual tuition for those doing the two-year degree completion program is $53,501.
“The Government of Canada has recognized that immigrants need the ability to use their fullest skills and experience in the Canadian labour market. This program will allow internationally trained dentists a pathway towards credential recognition,” notes a proposal for the program presented to the University Council last month.
Dentistry College dean Doug Brothwell estimates that as many as 1,000 people in Canada aren’t able to work as dentists because they completed their studies outside the country at schools not accredited in Canada.
He’s not sure how many of these foreign-trained dentists live in Saskatchewan, but says he has spoken with “several” people in that situation. He hopes giving foreign-trained dentists the education they need to be able to work will address the shortage of dentists in rural Saskatchewan.
“For one of these people coming in, they often come from different cultural backgrounds, they come from societies with different values from what we have, and my experience — I’ve been a dentist for a lot of years — my experience is that quite a few of them, a higher proportion than Canadian dentists, are interested and willing to go and practise rurally,” he said.
“Anything that we can do to increase the number of our graduates who go and practise in rural or remote areas, the better off the population of Saskatchewan would be.”
Auer recently started taking a dental assisting program, but says working as a dental assistant “is not my major goal in my life.”
She said she looks forward to applying to the dental degree completion program at the U of S when it launches and returning to her career as a dentist.