FIlipe Santos MD

The PER process of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons is currently the best pathway for specialists trained abroad! Find out all the details for your specialty and the FAQ that I posted above, for free, in my new website!

https://filipesantosmd.com/per-guide.html

Are you an internationally trained family physician with independent practice behind you?

Maybe you want a route to licensure in Canada that counts the years you have already worked? This is for you!

PRA - NEW BRUNSWICK

This post is especially for those in the following situations:

(1) Two years of postgraduate training in family medicine or general practice, plus one year of independent practice, OR
(2) One year of postgraduate training, plus two years of independent practice,

AND

* You are a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, or legally entitled to work in New Brunswick.

You may not have looked at this route closely!

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick runs a Practice Ready Assessment program, PRA-NB, for internationally trained family physicians. You choose an English stream or a French stream and complete the entire assessment in that language.

→ You apply through physiciansapply.ca, with an MCCQE pass and 450 hours of practice in the last three years.
→ Selection is a suitability review, a virtual multiple mini interview, and an interview with a regional health authority.
→ The assessment is an observership, then two six-week clinical field assessments with family physician assessors.
→ You then sign a three-year return of service agreement. That is you working as a licensed family physician in Canada.

→ PRA-NB is the only fully bilingual Practice Ready Assessment program in the country.

Your years in practice can be the answer!

Full details: https://filipesantosmd.com/licensing-guide.html

If your situation is complicated, I run 1:1 sessions to help internationally trained physicians find an option in the Canadian licensure system, if one exists. You can find my 1:1 booking link in my linktree.

Save this for when you need it. Send it to a family physician who is looking for a route.

What do you think is the answer?

Comment “MCQDAY” for up to 2 free new MCQs everyday. Come back everyday for more!

One original MCCQE-style question. Every day. Free.

Preparation drifts when it is not daily. Many of us study in long blocks, then go a week without answering a single question. Retrieval practice is what makes content stick, and it works best in small amounts, done often.

So I write one question a day.

MCQ of the Day is free. Every day there is one new question, original, written for internationally trained physicians preparing for the Canadian exams. The full reasoning comes with it.

What you get:

→ One new question, every day.
→ The discipline named up front, so you know what you are practising.
→ The answer with the reasoning behind it.
→ Why every wrong option is wrong.

→ A few minutes a day. That is the whole ask.

Consistency is the skill.

Comment “MCQDAY” for the link in your DM.

Save this for your study desk. Send it to an ITP preparing for the exam.

Every region in Canada requires proof of language proficiency.
Even if you were taught in English.

If you trained in a country where English is not the first language, that proof is generally still required, even when English was the language of instruction. It usually has to be current within the last 24 months. English in most regions. French in Quebec. Either English or French in New Brunswick.

The accepted tests are not interchangeable, and the minimum scores are not all the same.

I set the language requirements out region by region in the licensing guide on my site, with each accepted test and its exact minimum beside it.

What the tests require:

→ IELTS Academic. Minimum 7.0 in each of the four components, in one sitting.
→ OET Medicine. Minimum grade B in each subset, in one sitting.
→ CELPIP General. Minimum 9 in each component, in one sitting.
→ Quebec. A pass on the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF) examination, or accepted proof of knowledge of French under the applicable exemptions.
→ New Brunswick. English by the tests above, or French by TEF Canada or TCF Canada, each with its own minimum for reading, writing, speaking and listening, under the CPSNB Language Proficiency Policy.

→ One sitting matters. Strong components from two separate attempts do not combine.

Book the test before you think you need it.

Save this for your application file. Send it to an ITP who is choosing a test.

Check all the details on: https://filipesantosmd.com/licensing-guide.html?path=pra-fm

This Friday, Albertans can book their own MRI. No referral. You pay first, and only cancer gets you paid back.

Bill 29 received royal assent in May, and the self-referral system starts July 31. Albertans can refer themselves for X-rays, ultrasounds, CT, and MRI at participating accredited private clinics. You pay up front, out of pocket or through private insurance. The province says the point is earlier cancer detection. The Opposition says it will not reduce wait times and will create a two-tier system.

What the article actually reports:

→ Reimbursement applies only if the test leads to a new cancer diagnosis. You have one year from diagnosis to claim.
→ You are paid back at publicly funded rates, not at what the clinic charged you.
→ Anything else the scan finds, or finds nothing, stays your bill.
→ A private provider estimates the change could quadruple private testing in Alberta to roughly 50,000 or 60,000 tests a year.
→ Alberta already runs about seven million exams a year. So the new lane is under one percent of the volume.

→ The same private provider says clinics will have to expand capacity just to assess the people who self-refer.

That last point is the one worth sitting with. A regulated health professional has to confirm the test is appropriate. A radiologist has to read it. A physician has to act when the finding is concerning. Self-referral removes a gatekeeper, and it adds clinical work at every step behind the scanner.

Canada has thousands of internationally trained physicians waiting on a route to licensure. Radiologists among them.

Access is a workforce question before it is a payment question.

If your situation is complicated, I run 1:1 sessions to help internationally trained physicians find an option in the Canadian licensure system, if one exists. You can find my 1:1 booking link in my linktree.

Save this for the next time wait times come up. Send it to an ITP watching this from the sidelines.

Nine PRA programs in family medicine. Ten clinical assistant and associate physician licences. Which ones are open to you?

Eligibility differs more by province than most internationally trained physicians expect. Months of training, specific rotations, years of independent practice, how recently you practised, and which exams you hold. Many candidates qualify in some provinces and not in others, and finding out usually means reading nine program websites, one by one.

So I built a free tool that does the reading for you!

It is on my website. You answer once, about your training, your rotations, your practice, and your exams, and it shows you, province by province, what you meet, what is missing, and what to do next. Adapted from the e-book I wrote for the Medical Council of Canada. It is an educational screening, and the final decision always rests with each program.

What the tool does:

→ Screens all 9 Practice-Ready Assessment programs in family medicine, from PRA-BC to PRA-NL.
→ Screens all 10 clinical assistant and associate physician licences, open to family physicians and specialists.
→ Checks your rotations week by week, your currency of practice, and your exams (MCCQE, NAC, TDM).
→ Flags the hard limits early, like citizenship for Ontario and French for Quebec.
→ Ends with a free PDF summary of your pathways to keep.

→ Specialists: the Interactive PER Guide and the PRA for Specialists guide are on the site too.

Know where you stand before you spend a dollar on exams.

Check my new website for the free tool - link in bio!

Save this for when you plan your pathway. Send it to an IMG choosing a province.

Internal Medicine is the widest part of the MCCQE. You cannot study all of it to the same depth.

Cardiology, sepsis, kidney injury, thyroid, airway disease, hypertension. Any of them can show up on the exam, and many candidates spread their hours thin trying to cover everything. The exam is built around presentations. Textbooks are built around diseases. Neither one tells you which topics to study first.

So we built a two-part live intensive on the highest-yield Internal Medicine topics. This is Part 1.

Saturday, August 8. I am teaching it with Jason Malenfant. Each topic taught the way the exam expects, with the errors that cost candidates marks.

What we cover in Part 1:

→ Cardiology and chest pain. The ECG of ACS, and what changes management.
→ Sepsis and serious infection. Early recognition and the empiric approach.
→ Acute kidney injury and electrolytes. Hyperkalemia and the common disturbances.
→ Thyroid and calcium. Reading the tests, and thyroid storm.
→ Asthma and COPD. Telling them apart, and the breathless patient.
→ Hypertension. Emergency versus urgency, and what to treat.

→ Six high-yield topics. Three hours. The approach, not just the facts.

Part 2 follows on August 19, with gastroenterology and liver disease, blood disorders, diabetes, joint disease, stroke, and headache.

Depth where it counts.

Saturday, August 8. 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM ET. Live on Zoom. $59 CAD.

Comment “IMTOPICS” for the registration link in your DM. Or register through the link in my bio.

Save this for your study plan. Send it to an IMG preparing for the MCCQE.

What happens after you get PER Eligibility? How do you use the PER to get hoje first independent license in Canada?

I summarized it in that table and it’s available for free on my new website!