Emerg residency in the US

[MiniMedGirl]

One of my friends currently doing med school in canada is interested in doing Emerg in the States. I think it's a 3-yr program that is equivalent to the Frcpc 5 year canadian program. but i have heard that you can't go to the states to do a program because the province has to sign a "J-form" (?) saying that you can work/train there...provided there is no where for you to train in-province (since theprovince has a vested interest in retaining you since they spent x amount of provicial dollars training you). and the only way around this...is if you are a citizen of the US or married to one.


Has anyone heard the same?

[Ian Wong]

Here's some reading that you should do regarding the J-1 visa:

p084.ezboard.com/fpremed101frm25.showMessage?topicID=201.topic (http://p084.ezboard.com/fpremed101frm25.showMessage?topicID=201.topic)

In a nutshell, you need the J-1 or H1B visas to do a residency in the US if you otherwise are not a US citizen, or hold a US green card/permanent resident status. In order to get a J-1 visa, you need something called a Statement of Need from Health Canada. There's a link on that thread regarding what you need to have in order to qualify for that statement of need (unfortunately, it looks like the Health Canada website is being updated at the moment, but there is currently a placeholder link for where the 2005 requirements will be).

One thing that you need to have satisfied in order to get your Statement of Need (as far as I'm aware), is that the Royal College approves your US training program as meeting the Canadian Royal College requirements. The logic is that if the US program that you'd be using the Statement of Need/J-1 visa on doesn't satisfy the Royal College (in order words, even after finishing that US residency, the Royal College wouldn't let you work in Canada), then Health Canada is under no obligation to help you get that Statement of Need/J-1 visa.

If you want to know now, the program administrator for the Canadian J-1 visa program is Judith Lewis, and she can be reached by telephone 613 952 1912, by facsimile at 613 941 8081, or by email at Judith_Lewis@hc-sc.gc.ca

Ian