TLDR we are in a manpower shortage crisis that is bad now, going to get way worse soon (as the boomers retire) and will be on a nose dive overall for the next 15 years as the backbone of doctors that are not baby boomers are now over 50 and will be retiring at a rate far higher than we replace them.

Sweeping it under the rug for decades got us here.

   

Most new doctors are driving Uber.

   

1. Our system for assessing foreign doctors is absurdly inefficient. The various provincial colleges exhibit no sense of urgency whatsoever. The worst one I ever dealt with was Ontario. We should move to assessing individual fitness to practice rather than worrying so much about internships or country of origin. For specialists who have been practicing more than a few years, what they did in med school and internship is largely irrelevant. The current test of English in my province is too stringent. When a brilliant specialist who had just qualified and passed her exams in English at McGill was told she had to do it she explained to me in perfectly acceptable English that she was withdrawing her application.

2. Residency training for foreign grads. Sometimes foreign applicants for the residency living in Canada are turned down because they have been too long in research because they can’t get clinical training positions here! Instead grossly inferior people are chosen. Holy God, I’ll explode if I think too much about this.

3. A private system is emerging. Why not admit that and make it as useful for as many as possible?

4. We need many more nurse practitioners and nurses in outback Canada. Let’s be honest here - most Canadian medical grads don’t want to work in the periphery no matter what fibs they told when applying to med school.