Relevant Employment Options

Internationally-trained physicians coming to Ontario know that they will not be allowed to practice their profession without a local licence. Getting licensed as a physician in Ontario is a long, demanding and expensive process. Like many of your colleagues, you may find out that you need to study for your licence, and also work to make money for yourself and your family.

Many internationally-educated physicians decide not to pursue a licence as a medical doctor in Canada. They choose a different career.

How Can You Work in Medicine and Health Care if You Are Not Licensed?
Certainly you cannot work as a Physician (Medical Doctor). But you can always find job opportunities relevant to your field and your past experience.

A job opportunity is relevant to you when:

  1. It is in the field of medicine and health care.
  2. It allows you to use at least some of your professional knowledge and skills to create professional contacts and to build a professional work history in Canada.
  3. It allows you to learn about practicing your profession in Canada. In order to practice in the area of medicine and health care in Canada, you ill have to learn many new things, including:
    • Medical terminology
    • Medical documentation
    • Medical and administrative procedures
    • Drugs and drug administration
    • Concepts of health care
    • How to interact with patients, families and other practitioners
    • Medical Ethics, and much more

List of relevant options
Some of the internationally-trained medical doctors found the following relevant jobs:

Administrative Assistant, Centre for Geriatric Care
This job allows you to practice medical terminology, learn about medical documentation, observe how geriatric conditions are treated and handled within the Canadian Health Care System, and observe how medical professionals interact with patients and their families

Health Care Aide (or Home Support Worker)
Description
Essential skills for this job

Project Coordinator (Asthma Project) in a Community Health Centre at $50,000/year
Project coordinator jobs do not have any direct contact with clinical work, but will allow you to use your medical knowledge, administrative and often research skills. As a project coordinator, you will have a chance to make extensive contacts in your field, and observe many different aspects of the public health care system.

Project Coordinator jobs are often posted at www.charityvillage.com

Researcher, Scientific Institute
Various research jobs are available at hospitals, universities, research institutes, pharmaceutical and medical research companies. They will allow you to use your scientific knowledge, analytical and research skills.

Personal Support Worker
Personal Support Workers can work in a clinical/ hospital setting, or in the home of a patient. The job of a personal support worker at a hospital is very close to that of a Health Care Aide. If you work at the patient’s home, you may also be called home support worker.

Clinical Laboratory Assistant, Apotex, Inc. at $17.31/hr
While the profession of a clinical laboratory technologist is licensed in Ontario, you can still work as a laboratory assistant or laboratory technician, especially in the pharmaceutical industry.

Some relevant links:
Clinical Laboratory Helper
Clinical laboratory Technician

Doctor’s Assistant, Medical Clinic

Clerk/Accounting Assistant, Community Health Centre

EEG technician in a hospital at $70.00/day
Although EEG Technicians, as well as Ultrasound Diagnostics Technicians often start as volunteers or at a low hourly wage, they receive a lot of on-the-job training, and excellent opportunities to study for exams.

Research Analyst, Public Health Institute at $20/hr.
The client who got this job started as a volunteer at an affiliated institution.

Where to find relevant job postings:
Workopolis.com and monster.ca, of course, but also:

Canadian Medical Association for jobs in the medical field.
The Biotechnology Council for jobs and career options in the area of biotechnology.
Charity Village for jobs in community centers, associations, public health institutions, etc.
The Web sites of big hospitals and pharmaceutical companies.

And do not hesitate to volunteer at hospitals. Your volunteer job may be very modest, but just think how much you can learn by just observing and listening while in the hospital!

Come back to this site to read detailed descriptions of these, and more relevant job options, and to read success stories and interviews with employers.