New clinic aimed at luring foreign-trained doctors to N.S. could soon treat thousands of patients

A new clinic aimed at luring foreign-trained doctors to work in Nova Scotia has begun to recruit patients and could be treating thousands of people by next year.

The Halifax-area clinic is called PACE, which stands for Physician Assessment Centre of Excellence.

It's a project of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia and part of its initiative to attract new doctors to the province, where more than 110,000 people were on the need-a-family-practice registry as of Jan. 2.

"We're missing opportunities," Dr. Gus Grant, the college's registrar and CEO, said Wednesday.

"There are many internationally trained physicians with excellent training who can contribute immediately upon coming to Canada."

Right now, there is a shortage of 13,000 family physicians across the country, according to Health Canada. That shortfall is expected to grow to 20,000 in five years' time.

Grant said by contrast, Canadian medical schools are only graduating between 1,300 and 1,400 doctors every year. He said it's obvious from those figures that the only way to address the problem is to attract more foreign-trained doctors.

Dr. Gus Grant is the CEO and registrar of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia. The college's new Access to Care report says addressing the national shortage of doctors requires 'the successful recruitment, retention and licensure of internationally trained physicians.' (Dave Laughlin/CBC)

Grant said at the PACE clinic, those doctors will work under the supervision of Canadian physicians who will assess their performance.

He said that's a better way to assess skills than the traditional method of making them pass a Canadian entrance exam. He said the exams are tailored for newly graduated physicians and are not necessarily a good way to judge the abilities of someone who's been practising for a long time.

Grant said broadening efforts to recruit new doctors does not mean lowering the standards.

"The public expects that the college is only licensing safe doctors and it relies on us to do so, period," he said.

Grant said the college is also part of a program called Welcome Collaborative that helps orient new physicians to life here in Nova Scotia.

Grant said Nova Scotia was also the first jurisdiction in Canada to accept American-trained doctors without requiring them to pass the entrance exam.

He said the college and other licensing authorities in Canada are exploring what other jurisdictions might have sufficient minimum standards for their physician training to allow them to be fast-tracked for work here in Canada. He said one area being examined is Lebanon, a country that produces far more doctors than it needs.

As for the PACE clinic, Grant said for now, it has temporary housing in a mall, where two internationally trained physicians will be working while they're being assessed.

The plan is to move the clinic into its own purpose-built facility by 2026 where it could treat upward of 6,400 patients.

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