Foreign trained professionals in Canada determined to succeed

Canada, 18th February: Immigrants coming to Canada armed with foreign medical degrees and training are determined to make it big in Canada.

According to Marty Schreiter from the Kitchener Waterloo Multicultural Center, newcomers coming to Canada are hopeful despite facing huge disappointments.

Nearly 150 medical professionals from abroad have been studying for Canada qualifying examination in one of the rooms provided by this centre.

Out of these foreign medical professionals, some also hail from nations like Pakistan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Egypt.

All these immigrant medical professionals in Canada say they had knowledge about the problems lying ahead before immigrating to Canada, but still took the resolve to move on.

According to one immigrant in Canada from Iraq, Mustafa Abdul Selam, his overseas friends informed him about the obstacles lying ahead in a foreign land for a newcomer, but, nothing could deter him from moving to Canada.

A common predicament of foreign educated and trained medical professionals in Canada is the lack of recognition of their foreign credentials.

No one is ready to accept these foreign trained and experienced medical professionals even as volunteers, quips a foreign trained medical professional Masood Sedghi adding that his eight years of medical education followed by 13 years of experience is of no use in Canada.

That’s not all. The hospital environment in Canada does not recognize their education and expertise, states Faaeza Jawaid, a medical student in Canada, making her ineligible for getting work in Canada hospitals.

And this is proved by a report released by Statistics Canada in September 2010 which states the rate of foreign credential recognition to be around 32 percent in Ontario. And B.C.(British Columbia) and Atlantic Canada have the ratings of 23 percent and 59 percent in terms of recognition of foreign credentials.

Red tape is also responsible for a long wait in the recognition of credentials of foreign professionals in Canada.

The CIC (Citizenship and Immigration Canada) has formulated nearly 400 regulatory bodies throughout Canada but these bodies seem to be making the process of recognition of foreign credentials even longer and tedious for newcomers in Canada. Despite such hardships, hope keeps the newcomers medical professionals alive and kicking.