University of Waterloo partners with Grenada-based school to address the doctor shortage in Canada

The University of Waterloo (UW) is addressing the shortage of doctors which affects millions of Canadians through a new partnership with Grenada-based St. George's University's (SGU) School of Medicine.

According to the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) more than 6.5 million Canadians do not have access to a family doctor, a number which continues to grow.

Chris Houser, dean of UW's faculty of science, says the program is a recognition of the limited medical school spots across the province and country.

"There is a large number of students who … never make their dream of going to medical school or are already going out of [the] country right from day one and have no affiliation, no connection back to Ontario to their home region," Houser said.

He said the "first-of-its-kind" program in Canada allows students several benefits including building a relationship with their home region, guaranteed admission to an accredited medical school, and a pathway to practice back to Canada. 

The partnership with St. George's University (SGU) in Grenada is for a five or six-year Doctor of Medicine pathway for prospective students. The traditional Canadian model requires seven to eight years. This is before residency which requires additional years of placement in a medical setting. 

Through this new program, students will earn a Bachelor of Medical Sciences (BMSci) from UW and an MD from SGU. Foundational sciences will be delivered in Waterloo and medical training will take place either at SGU's Grenada campus or at Northumbria University in the U.K., which is another post-secondary partner of SGU.

Applications for the September 2026 class are now open.

The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), which is responsible for licensing physicians and physician assistants, setting professional expectations and conducting investigations for college registrants in Ontario, said in an email to CBC News "it is committed to exploring new ways to evaluate Internationally Educated Physicians wishing to practise medicine in the province."

"CPSO is supportive of initiatives that help qualified doctors enter practice and obtain licensure in Ontario, while maintaining the standards necessary to support Ontarians with access to safe and timely care," the statement continued. 

In Canada, medical students who graduate from international schools are placed into a separate category compared to those from Canadian medical schools. 

The process of landing a residency in Canada remains a limiting factor because the majority of spots are reserved for graduates from Canadian medical schools. 

Last year, 2,936 domestic medical graduates were selected for residency out of 3,086. That number was 671 out of 1,602 internationally trained medical students. In percentages, this is a difference of 95 per cent for domestic medical school graduates versus 42 per cent for international medical school graduates.

According to the press release by the universities, St. George's University has been North America's largest provider of new doctors for over a decade. It has also been successful at placing graduates into residencies 94 per cent of the time. 

Successful graduates of the program will still have to write the Canadian and Ontario licensing exams.