Every route to practising medicine in Canada has its own exams, its own regulator, and its own vocabulary. This page sorts them by where you stand today. Each card names the route, the words you will meet, and the page on this site that takes it further.
Pick the sentence below that describes how you trained, and see which route fits.
2Run the screener, or the PER guide if you are a specialist, against your own training, practice, and exams.
3Gather the documents your route lists, and track every exam and application date on the Deadline Radar.
Nine provinces run a Practice-Ready Assessment (PRA) for family physicians. You practise under observation for a period, typically around 12 weeks, and a pass leads to a conditional licence with a return of service. Selection is competitive, and each province sets its own exam and currency rules.
Two routes lead to specialist practice. The Practice Eligibility Route (PER) is national, document based, and run by the Royal College; it can be started from abroad and leads to certification. The specialist PRA is provincial and workplace based. Four provinces run one, Alberta, Manitoba, Quebec, and Nova Scotia, each for the disciplines it is currently assessing, and each asks for a job offer first.
Clinical assistant and associate physician roles let you work under a licensed physician's supervision. You are never the most responsible physician. The role is not a licensure pathway on its own, but licensed time in it counts toward the currency requirement of some PRA programs.
Residency positions are filled through the CaRMS match. You apply to programs, interview, rank them, and the algorithm matches you. Most programs ask for the MCCQE Part I and the NAC, and most program descriptions say what they want in your CV and personal letter.
The Medical Council of Canada (MCC) runs the MCCQE Part I, the NAC Examination, and the TDM Examination. Which ones you need depends on the route and the province. Start with the format of each exam, then build a study plan around it.
Answer a short set of questions about your training, your practice, and your exams, and the screener compares your profile against every family medicine PRA program and every clinical assistant and associate physician licence. Nothing you type is stored.
There are two ways into Canadian practice. You can retrain in a Canadian residency, which means the CaRMS match. Or you can apply as a physician who is already trained, which means one of the practice-ready routes: a PRA if you are a family physician, the PER or a specialist PRA if you are a specialist. The second group is where most of this site lives.
Whichever way you go, three things follow you: the MCC exams you hold, how recently you practised, and your language test. Most routes ask for the MCCQE Part I. Some ask for the NAC or the TDM as well. Every practice-ready assessment program has a currency requirement, and a practice gap of three to five years or more is a problem for all of them. English test results are valid for 24 months.
Licensing itself is provincial. The MCC examines you and the Royal College or the College of Family Physicians certifies you, but the licence comes from the regulator of the province where you will work. That is why the same physician can be eligible in one province and not in the next, and why this site sorts almost everything province by province.
Short definitions, in the order you are likely to meet them. Each links to the page that goes further.
The links I send clients after a consultation, sorted by stage. Official sources only.
Most routes ask about at least one of these. Settle them first and the rest of the site reads faster.
Most routes list the MCCQE Part I. Check whether yours also needs the NAC or the TDM before you book anything. Exam dates and deadlines →
Count your months as the most responsible physician in the last three and five years. Supervised and unlicensed work count differently in each province, and unlicensed work counts nowhere.
IELTS Academic 7.0 in each component, OET Medicine grade B, or CELPIP General 9, in one sitting, within the last 24 months. Quebec requires French. Language and immigration links →
A private consultation helps you make sense of the options and identify practical next steps.
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