Medicentres Canada

IMG Licensing Alberta

May 25, 2014

Agenda

Medicentres Overview

CPSA – Licensing on Provisional Register

• General Practice

• Specialist Practice

Medicentres IMG Programs

Overview

Medicentres is a primary care health management company

Manage staff, premises, supplies and administration support for physicians

In business for 33 years

17 sites in Edmonton, 9 in Calgary and 2 in Ontario

Overview

Employ 450 staff

• part time, full time and casual

Manage 280 physicians

• 130 full-time

• 150 part time and casual

Provisional Licensing by the

College of Physicians and

Surgeons of Alberta

Steps to Licensing

Becoming eligible (Difficult for most)

Document Verification • PCRC, reference letters, letters of

standing (Easy)

Getting sponsorship (Difficulty depends on speciality)

Getting/Passing an assessment (Very Difficult)

Finalizing a license (Easy)

Eligibility

First the College requires you to fill in a form on-line to see if you have the minimum qualifications to be considered ELIGIBLE.

ELIGIBLE is not the same as a guarantee of a license

Components of Eligibility

GP

Eligible

24 Months

of Training

Completion of

Specific Rotations

and Family Medicine

Completion

of the EE and

TOEFL/ILETS

Required

Reasonable Practice

in Past 3 Years as GP

Specialist or

Non-Specialist

Eligible

36/48 Months

of Specialist

Training

Certificate of Specialty

from Country

of Training

Completion

of the EE and

TOEFL/ILETS

Required

Reasonable Practice

in Past 3 Years

as Specialist

Eligibility

Most people have problems with the eligibility because they do not know how to present their information. • E.g. use of terms such as senior house officer,

registrar, resident medical officer etc. These are not considered to be training titles!

• E.g. They claim to be specialized but do not have minimum 3 or 4 years of training.

Eligibility

They think that anybody can be a GP with one year of internship.

They think that experience should count as training – unfortunately it does not.

They don’t understand what is required for eligibility before they fill the form.

They make misstatements that cannot be retracted later.

Eligibility

If you do not get past the eligibility you will never get a license.

The College will not look for reason to say “Yes”. You have to prove your training.

Just because they say “No” the first time does not mean you should give up.

Carefully written letters have been very successful to explain training.

Eligibility

You can only be a specialist or a general practitioner. You cannot be both.

A person who has practiced as a specialist cannot change to become a general practitioner.

Specialist training does not count as training to be a GP. e.g. neurosurgery or internal med.

GP training is considered different from specialist training.

Eligibility for General Practice

To be eligible certain training requirements must be met.

• Training means it was done in a teaching hospital with university affiliation.

• It must have had evaluations and supervision – internship, residency

• There must be transcripts and certificates.

• Unfortunately experience does not count.

Eligibility for General Practice

Total 24 months of acceptable postgraduate training.

• Minimum of 2 months each in 3 of the 4 major disciplines of pediatrics, internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics/gynecology training.

• Minimum of 4 months of family medicine training done outside the hospital (hospital outpatient clinics not allowed) in community clinics.

Eligibility for General Practice

Family medicine is not the same as community medicine.

Remainder of training, to make 24 months can be subjects relevant to being a GP.

• E.g. emergency, psychiatry

• Not: ENT, thoracic surgery, nephrology etc.

Training is not the same as work experience or employment or electives or educational courses. Training is formal internship or residency or post-graduate trainee.

Eligibility for Non- Specialty

Practice

36 to 48 months of acceptable postgraduate training in a specific specialty.

Usual course length must be at least 36 months, not just how long it took you to complete it.

Specialty certificate from the country of training is required. Master and PhD may be accepted depending on country.

MRCP, MCPS and similar designations are not accepted.

Eligibility for Non- Specialty

Practice

If accepted for Non-Specialty practice it means you are confined to specific field of training. Cannot practice as a GP.

You are not considered a GP but get paid at the same rates.

You are not considered a specialist and cannot call yourself a specialist.

It will be difficult to get referrals.

Eligibility for Specialty Practice

Minimum of 48 months of acceptable postgraduate training in a specific specialty.

Usual course length must be at least 48 months, not just how long it took you to complete it.

Specialty certificate from the country of training is required. PhD may be accepted depending on country.

MRCP, MCPS and similar designations are not accepted.

Eligibility for Specialty Practice

FCPS and fellowship is usually accepted.

FRCS and FRCP from other countries are accepted but only if there is a certificate of completion of training.

You cannot have specialty training from one country and a specialty certificate from another country.

Eligibility and English Language

Eligibility requires that you complete TOEFL or IELTS.

You must have minimum scores on TOEFL or IELTS to become eligible.

Results must be from the past 2 years.

Require 24 in each component for TOEFL and 7.0 in each component for IELTS.

Eligibility and MCC

Eligibility also depends on completion of some MCC exams.

All applicants must now have completed the EE before they will be eligible.

Eligibility and Current Practice

To be eligible you must have stayed in practice for a reasonable period in the past three years.

Physicians who have been out of practice for three years or more are told to retrain through residency.

No specific length is published but experience indicates generally this is at least six months in the past two years in your own field.

From Eligibility to Licensing

You may be eligible but can you actually get a license?

You have to get a sponsor who is willing to pay for your assessment. ($25,000 to $45,000).

The sponsor must also get approval from Alberta Health Services to conduct the assessment.

From Eligibility to Licensing

AHS does not give approvals in many cases – mostly specialists affected.

Assessment has 2 parts

• Knowledge assessment – 3 months

• Practice assessment – 3 months

If you fail either part the assessment is finished. There is no opportunity to repeat without further training.

Assessments & Supervised

Practice

Assessments for GPs are readily available.

Assessments for pediatrics, general internal medicine are much less available but possible.

Assessments for medical subspecialists and surgical specialties are very difficult to get.

• Lack of assessors – e.g. general surgery, neonatology, respirology

• Often need hospital resources which are not available – e.g. intensive care unit, surgery suite

Timeline for Licensing

From application for eligibility to provisional licensing generally takes 1 year.

A provisional license is not restricted in any way. It is not a supervised license. It is an independent practice license.

Once you have had a provisional license for 6 years, you are eligible for a full license. You do not need to complete any further exams for a full license.

Summary of Steps

You must become eligible

You must have documents verified

You must get a sponsor and sponsor must get AHS approval

You must pass an assessment

At any step problems can arise. Most common at eligibility and sponsorship