B.C. veterinary college urged to consider interim licences for foreign-trained vets
Credit to Author: Jennifer Saltman| Date: Sun, 05 Jan 2020 22:30:17 +0000
Rajan Salhotra was a veterinarian for almost 37 years in India, caring for both large and small animals while working for the government and at his own practice.
But since moving to Surrey in 2012, he has spent his days working as a security guard at construction sites around Metro Vancouver while studying and taking exams with the goal of becoming licensed to practice veterinary medicine in Canada.
It’s been a long process, and one Salhotra has found demoralizing.
“Having a full career and coming here and starting at the bottom level, it breaks you mentally. That adds more stress and nervousness when you do the surgery and exams. It’s pressure emotionally and financially on the whole family,” Salhotra said.
Salhotra, 56, is one of many foreign-trained veterinarians in B.C. who are working security jobs, driving taxis and doing other jobs that are unrelated to what they’ve been trained to do.
He said if he had the opportunity to work, even in a limited capacity, as a vet while working toward his licence, it would boost his confidence, give him more experience and possibly help with the provincewide veterinarian shortage.
Last year, the B.C. chapter of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association conducted a labour market study that found that there is a significant shortage of vets across all regions of the province and in most types of practice.
The most common recommendations in the study to deal with the shortage were to increase the number of B.C. students at the Western College of Veterinary Medicine, and make it easier to hire experienced foreign-trained vets.
“Administrative requirements for hiring foreign-trained veterinarians, recruitment costs and recertification and licensing processes can create barriers for employers to recruit from abroad,” the study said.
Foreign-trained vets from non-accredited schools must take three National Examining Board tests — basic and clinical sciences, North American veterinary licensing, a preliminary surgical assessment and a clinical proficiency — in order to receive a certificate of qualification.
Completing all exams can take three to five years, then the vet must register in their home province in order to practice.
In B.C., while a student from an accredited school can perform some duties under the supervision of a licensed vet, a vet who graduated from a non-accredited school cannot practice until they have completed the entire exam process.
Ravdeep Singh graduated from Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University in Ludhiana, India, in 2010. He practised for four years and moved to Canada with his wife in 2014. He has passed his first two exams and the preliminary surgical assessment, and is waiting to get a date for his final exam.
Singh is also a security guard, and said working in a veterinary office would prepare him for exams and finance the licensing process, which runs in the thousands of dollars.
“This will help a lot,” he said. “It has been working in other provinces. This is not something new they would have to introduce.”
Dr. Hakam Bhullar at the Atlas Animal Hospital in Vancouver.
Dr. Hakam Bhullar, a Vancouver veterinarian, said he knows of more than 30 foreign-trained vets in the same position as Salhotra and Singh and he is a strong advocate for instituting a form of interim licensing in B.C., which exists in at least six other provinces.
“We are not compromising anything,” Bhullar said.
For instance, in Alberta there is a limited supervised licence, which allows a vet who graduated from a non-accredited school, has been accepted to enter the National Examining Board process and has passed the basic and clinical sciences exam, to work under the immediate supervision of a full licensed vet for up to two years.
After completing the second exam, they can become a temporary registered veterinarian.
Dr. Rob Ashburner, a Vancouver veterinarian who is on the board of the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association — Society of B.C. Veterinarians Chapter, said offering restricted licences for vets from non-accredited schools so they can work while they go through the exam process would certainly help, and it’s something that the society has brought up to the college over the years.
However, it’s not a panacea.
“They would need to be supervised. The shortage is not in people in B.C. wanting to be veterinarians and going through the vet process, the shortage is having trained vets on the ground,” he said.
What would help even more is increasing capacity at universities with veterinary training hospitals where the clinical proficiency exam is administered, he said, which could be done with more funding from the province.
The College of Veterinarians of B.C. is having preliminary discussions about whether it should follow other provinces like Alberta and Ontario, and offer a temporary or restricted licence to veterinarians who trained at non-accredited schools and are in the process of getting their Canadian licence.
College registrar and CEO Luisa Hlus said, however, that if discussions go well and there is a move to change the college’s bylaws around licensing, it will take time to engage registrants and draft the updates.
“If there’s a groundswell or will to have a temporary licence or training licence, we’re certainly willing to look at that,” said Hlus.