CRY ME A RIVER
Further to your article in the March 30 issue regarding licensing of foreign medical graduates ("Do we need a national agency to assess IMG credentials?" March 30, 2007, Vol 4, No 6). We've heard the same tear-jerking story over and over again about doctors from Bangladesh cleaning toilets at McDonalds. Spare us the whining from the NDP and the Immigration Industry about the "tragedy" of foreign doctors who can't get a licence following arrival in Canada. These people are fully aware of the rules BEFORE they immigrate to Canada. Until the rules change, they will have to follow them. If they don't, they don't work.

Dr Wayne Campbell, Toronto

SYMPTOM OF BIGGER PROBLEM
Sam Solomon's March 30 article "Do we need a national agency to assess IMG credentials?" highlights the deplorable way Canada has wasted the talents of hundreds of IMGs. First we steal them from other countries and then we refuse to recognize their training and experience. We set impossible hurdles for them to overcome. We tell them to take Canadian training but we refuse to provide it. We tell them to pass Canadian exams, the same ones our medical students take, but the knowledge these exams test often has no relevance to the type of medicine they'll be practising. How many of us FRCP/FRCS "specialists" could now pass those exams?

But it's not only the IMGs who are being abused by the archaic regulations that our provincial licensing bodies have surrounded themselves with. These same licensing bodies also waste the talents of all the already licensed Canadian physicians who have to get their diplomas out of their frames, pay non-refundable documentation fees, show up for personal interviews and pay a full year licence fee to do something as simple as a short-term locum in a neighbouring province.

With 10 provinces and three territories isn't it about time that we started recognizing the medical licences of other Canadian jurisdictions? I've asked this question of all the college registrars and the presidents of all the provincial medical associations. Many have written long and thoughtful replies, most in agreement, but none seem willing to take on the challenge. I'm sure a working weekend in Regina next winter would yield a solution, perhaps not for the IMGs but certainly for the CMGs. How about it guys? Why not do something really useful? Are you up to the challenge?

Dr Stephen Sullivan, Locum Internist/Gastroenterologist, Victoria, BC

CLARIFICATION
The article "Nurse gassers sink standards: MDs" (April 15, 2007, Vol. 4, No 7, page 3) stated that the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario would be involved in developing the curriculum for Ontario's Nurse Practitioner — Anesthesia program. In fact the program is being developed by the Departments of Medicine and Nursing at the University of Toronto.