'No success': Internationally trained doctors in Sask. struggle to find work due to lack of residency positions

As the Government of Saskatchewan works to attract doctors and other health care workers to the province, limited residency positions are leaving some professionals without jobs.

Jamie Eng is a lifelong Saskatchewan resident who went to medical school in Poland. He graduated as a doctor but can’t get a residency position in the province to complete his training.

“I’ve done so much training. I’ve done locums, I’ve even done a master’s program as they requested,” Eng told CTV News.

“Every year I’ve applied for five years without success.”

Medical school graduates must complete a two year residency program before being licensed as doctors, rotating through various specialties and the emergency department.

Eng says Saskatchewan offers only 10 residency positions a year to international medical graduates such as himself.

“There’s roughly between two to three hundred physicians like me living in the province of Saskatchewan who are fighting every year for those ten spots with no success.”

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Dr. Talukdar is a clinical professor of paediatrics with the University of Saskatchewan and works in a private practice in Regina. He also recognizes the current issues facing internationally trained doctors in the province.

“A lot of the internationally trained extremely bright medical graduates are driving Ubers, they’re working in pizza, they’re housekeepers, and they’re extremely frustrated,” he explained.

The Government of Saskatchewan has stated it is aware of the situation and reiterated that medical training must pass provincial standards in the province.

“Not all doctors in the world are trained at the same level,” Minister of health Paul Merriman said.

“We have a very high standard here in Saskatchewan.”

Due to the current system, many candidates leave Saskatchewan to complete their training and never return.