STEP 7: College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO)

 


 

All the preparation and work up to this point has been preparing you for this moment. The CPSO is the body that grants you your medical licence. There are a few pathways to obtain your medical license but for me, I was applying for an Independent Practice License, which requires you to pass the MCCQE1 and to have obtained CFPC Exam Eligibility without pre-condition. You used to need to pass the MCCQE2 as well but as of June 2021, that is no longer required.

The CPSO committee will review your application, and they meet about 11 times a year. You need to target a date that works for you as your CPSO application is only valid for 12 months. The following chart shows the deadline dates for your applications. I was targeting a meeting date of August 11 (meaning the committee meets and reviews my application on that date). In order to meet that deadline, I would have need to submit an application by May 9, 2022 and submit all my supporting documents before June 21. This means that you can submit an incomplete application, you just have to pay the fee of $1,035 CAD and submit the preliminary paperwork. Please note that the number of meeting they hold a year are not set in stone, sometimes they will add additional meeting dates. For myself, I was targeting an August meeting date, but they still reviewed my application at the end of June. I can't promise this will always happen, but this is what happened for me

 

You will need to submit a lot of documents in this step but luckily, a lot of the documents you have had sourced verified can be used again.

The first part of this application process is signing up for a member portal account. It's pretty standard and easy to do.

Next, you will need to fill out a self-screening questionnaire which will tell you which pathway you are eligible for. Hopefully it's the Independent Practice License. Either way, once you have done the self-screening questionnaire, you will be automatically granted access to the pathway you are eligible for.

Afterwards you will need to start filling in the application and submitting the documents that are required of you. You will need to submit all the documents they are asking for (they will tailor it according to your pathway and your situation). For me, I needed the following:

·       Statement of my MCCQE1 Results - simply upload a pdf of your results; downloaded from the physiciansapply portal

·       Evidence of Canadian Citizenship- can reuse your document from physiciansapply

·       Copy of Medical Degree- can reuse your document from physiciansapply

·       Referee list (and 3 referee reports) - you will need to nominate 3 referees and download the form for them to fill out. The referees will be required to sent their report directly to their CPSO email

·       Updated curriculum vitae (CV)

·       Certificate of completion: New Member Orientation: once you become a member, you have to complete an eight part workshop which outlines what the CPSO is and their purpose. Once you have completed this you will be issued a certificate which you upload

·       Specialist Certification outside of Canada- can reuse your FRACGP document from physicians apply

·       CFPC Eligibility letter- this is the letter you were trying to get from the CFPC previously

·       Canadian Criminal Record Check- you will need to complete a Criminal Record and Judicial matters check for people who reside outside of Canada. This only costs $20 CAD and take a couple weeks to process. You will need to upload the letter of your police check

·       Licentiate of the Medical Council of Canada

·       Medical School transcript (original copy)- you will need to contact your medical school to submit a copy of your medical school transcript to the CPSO. I didn't know if they would accept an electronic copy or an original paper copy, I just submitted both. This cost me $75 AUD ($68 CAD)

·       Confirmation of Standing (Australia) this is that letter from AHPRA from previous steps. I couldn't share the one I paid for to the CPSO for some reason so I had to re-request this. This cost $50 AUD ($45 CAD).

·       Current Practice Description & Ontario Practice Plans- you will have to submit a practice plan. It's not difficult, they have a template that you just fill out and submit.

·       Specialist Certification: CFPC- you don't need to do anything for this step, the CFPC will issue you this specialist certification stating that you have met the criteria to be granted Certification in Family Medicine (CCFP) by the College of Family Physicians of Canada (CFPC) without further examination and then invite you to pay a $1,500 CAD processing fee, which you will need to pay

After everything has been processed and reviewed, you will hopefully get the following message in your CPSO inbox again 'inviting' you to pay money. This time a membership fee of $1532.23.

 

This is one of the final hurdles.

Total cost for this step: $4,200.23 CAD

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