While Canada contemplates retaliatory tariffs on imported U.S. goods in response to the ever-fluctuating threats of trade sanctions from the American president, BC has opened up its border to make it easier to recruit U.S.-trained physicians.
in a noon-hour news conference Wednesday in Vancouver, Health Minister Josie Osborne updated the media about the success of recruitment efforts targeting Washington, Oregon and California. Since March, the province has received 780 job applications from qualified American healthcare professionals.
Of that U.S.-trained applicant total, 188 are doctors and 399 are nurses. Osborne said they have applied to across the spectrum of the province's health authorities over the past two months.
Osborne also reported that 2,250 Americans have signed up for webinars and expressed an interest in moving to BC, including 827 doctors, 851 nurses, 254, nurse practitioners and 250 allied health professionals.
The government has been working with College of Physicians and Surgeons of BC (CPSBC) to change its bylaws to streamline the process so U.S-trained doctors certified by the American Board of Medical Specialties. As of July 7, they can now become fully licensed in BC without the need for further assessment, examination or training.
BC is hoping to take advantage of American physicians disgruntled with how their federal government is being run by the Republicans under Donald Trump and promote the lifestyle advantages of living and working in the province.
"BC's health workforce is full of world-class health professionals and they show up each and every single day for the people of this province, but we all know our healthcare heroes are facing some tough challenges right now," said Osborne. 'BC has an aging population and communities across the province are growing faster than services can catch up.
"Earlier this year we recognized a great opportunity, ee looked to our neighbours to the south and asked, might some of them be interested in bringing their skills to British Columbia? Because south of the border we re seeing a lot of healthcare workers who are feeling uncertain about the future. They are looking at the increasingly draconian healthcare policies that are emerging out of their president's administration with growing concern and we saw an opportunity we just couldn't miss - a chance to recruit some of the best and brightest, people who would hit the ground running and make an immediate impact for people in British Columbia.
Since the new rules were approved this month, 29 U.S. doctors have submitted registration applications to the college.
"CPSBC is always looking to evolve its bylaws, processes and procedures as health-care needs evolve," said Dr. Patrick Rowe, CPSBC registrar and CEO, in a government release. "These bylaw amendments are part of our work with government to find opportunities that will help British Columbians receive more accessible and timely care."
The new open-border policy could be a partial solution to the doctor shortages that are resulting long wait times for patients and crippling hospital emergency rooms with closures that have plagued the province’s healthcare system.
That could mean there’s help coming to Northern Health facilities, including University Hospital of Northern BC, that are feeling the pinch of healthcare staff shortages.
“The college changed the rules in June, so that people that used to have write a bunch of exams and things to get licensed in BC no longer have to do those exams, and that includes most of the Commonwealth countries, but mostly Americans who want to leave because of Trump,” said Prince George family physician Ian Schokking, the Prince George Medical Staff Association lead.
“They’ve simply made the way to licensure easier if you have the same training in those countries. It used to be you would come to Canada and you would have five years to pass your Canadian exams and you could start working when you got here. Now you can start working when you get here and you don’t have to pass those exams.”
The effort to remove barriers for doctors to move to BC from other provinces or territories. Now they can receive unrestricted licences from other Canadian jurisdictions within a week, a process that used to take a month.
There are also more international doctors taking advantage of the BC’s Practice Ready Assessment program, and the health ministry increased the number of seats for that program from 32 to 96 in 2024. Foreign doctors not fully licensed are now working as associate physicians alongside doctors or as part of medical teams who mentor them in their practices.
BC is also stepping up nurse recruitment initiatives in the United States to make it easier for them to make the move. U.S. nurses will soon be able to apply directly to the BC College of Nurses and Midwives (BCCNM) to reduce the time it takes to get licenced.
Osborne said there have been 320 nurses and 46 nurse practitioners from the U.S. who have applied to the BCCNM.
Schokking said there are some concerns some physician specialists trained in the U.S. are used to providing primary care to patients, which goes against the grain of the Canadian system, which requires patients be referred to a specialist from a general practitioner.
“There are some differences in the way some specialists in the States practice,” Schokking said. “Many internal medicine doctors provide essentially primary care and you could see an internist without being screened by a GP, which is not the Canadian way. Many (U.S.) pediatricians are essentially the primary care provider for kids, they don’t actually have to be referred to either.”
The province has changed its pay structure for doctors and has adopted the Longitudinal Family Physician (LFP) payment model to better compensate doctors for time spent building relationships with patients by providing primary care and they Canadian doctors do make more money than they used to before the system was implemented in 2023. However, U.S. doctors earn considerably more than their Canadian colleagues, which might temper BC’s recruitment initiative.
“BC is one of the more popular places in the country to come and work because of the lifestyle, but they make less money here,” said Schokking.
“Physicians (on average) probably make two-thirds of what you would make in the States. In the States you can write off your house (payments) and in Canada you can’t. There are some differences so that, financially, the States is a better place to be.”
Internationally-trained doctors who want to practice in BC will have have their licence approvals fast-tracked if they have completed a minimum of two years of accredited postgraduate training in family medicine in the U.S., Australia, United Kingdom or Ireland, or if they are specialists who have completed postgraduate training and received a completion of training certificate and certification in certain specialties from Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, UK or Ireland.
The easing of licensing rules does not apply to South African family doctors, who were essentially shut out of Canada starting in 2010, when the federal government stepped up formal training requirements to make it more difficult for them to work in Canada. That came in response to political pressure from South African authorities to discourage Canada from recruiting their doctors.
“The requirement is you have equivalent training to what we have in Canada and South Africans have one or two things in their training they don’t get, which is sort of how they were disqualified,” said Schokking.
“It sucks because they’re good docs. Half the North was staffed with South Africans for a while, and somebody thought it was bad to poach from a third-world country, so they closed the doors.”
Schokking said he has taken some flak, especially from female doctors at UHNBC, for his comments in a Citizen article published last week for attributing the doctor shortages in the Northern Health region to a generational shift among the new crop of graduating student doctors who don’t want to work overtime hours or take on additional shifts in hospitals or work in after-hours clinics.
Schokking explained he wasn’t blaming anybody for not wanting to give up family time to take on more healthcare responsibilities, he was simply pointing out that was what the standard expected of young doctors of his generation when he started his practice 40 years ago, and as a result there are not enough doctors.
“They don’t train enough to replace the people who are retiring who work lots of hours when the newer grads simply have a different approach to work,” Schokking said. “It’s not a bad thing, it’s just the way they are. I’m divorced because I worked too hard. The younger people are not interested in doing that, and that’s OK.”
