A Must Read: Applying to BC for Residency

First of all, read through the BC IMG website.  SOCASMA requested clarification of a few points found on that website, and here they are, courtesy of Dr Snadden in September 2013.

1.  Residency Requirements

“…as well as requiring passing scores in the NAC OSCE and the MCCEE exams the selection process will be looking at performance in the selection interview and for evidence of clinical experience in the applicants file. The BC IMG Clinical assessment program* will continue to be one way for all IMGs to demonstrate their competencies in a valid and reliable way and while not a requirement for success in the CaRMS match, it is one factor that may increase applicants’ chances of successful matching.  At the moment the Ministry of Health has advised us that they would like to have BC residency as a requirement of application to the BC IMG Assessment program. The residency requirement for that program has been streamlined and is described on our IMG Website.”

 *Now called the “Clinical Assessment Program”.

(September 4, 2013)

2.  Language Requirements 

“Current language requirements to be given an educational license in BC by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC (https://www.cpsbc.ca/files/pdf/REG-ELP.pdf).These are By-laws of the CPSBC and therefore outside of our jurisdiction, you will note that some Canadian students who are native English speakers will require to take language tests if the environment in which they trained does not meet the above criteria and if they require an educational licence. That applies both to students seeking electives and to those applying for residency programs.”

(September 4,2013)

“We have had many cases of IMGs being blindsided by our prompt for proof of English Language Proficiency (ELP) during the NAC OSCE application process. They did not ignore our website info that directs them to the College ELP policy; they simply did not read the list of acceptable countries and assumed that as their training was conducted entirely in English they would not have produce proof of ELP. A good example would be grads from Saba in Netherland Antilles. I’d like to suggest that a line be added to remind the IMGs to access the link of acceptable countries posted by CPSBC.”

(September 14, 2013)