FAQ: First Class VS Second Class

We will use B.C. as an example:

I.  CMG (Canadian and American Medical School Graduate) stream in 2013:
*CSAs and other IMGs can only compete for leftover positions after CMGs have completed their first round (iteration) of competition.

• 274 residency positions :

1. 107 family medicine residencies
2.  167 specialty positions

• 256 UBC graduates
• 252 UBC graduates applied for residency in Canada.
• 140 UBC graduates stayed to work in British Columbia residency positions.
• 16 Leftover positions after first round (iteration)
• Competition as of right
• No return of service obligations.  This is true even of those medical school applicants who entered UBC medical school with low MCAT scores and GPAs as low as 70% because UBC considered them good candidates for rural practice.

II.  IMG (International Medical Graduate) stream in 2013:

•  34 residency positions:

1. 28 family medicine residencies
2. 6 specialty positions in 3 out of 64 recognized specialty disciplines:  psychiatry, internal medicine, pediatrics.  So 61 out of 64 specialty disciplines are not available to IMGs.

• Ability to compete is contingent on agreeing to return of service obligations.
• Preference of immigrant physicians over CSAs.  (Number of CSAs who have been successful is not available as all bodies have refused to provide this information.  Few succeed in BC.)

Before 2005 there were a total of 6 residency positions in the IMG stream.