Characteristics of international medical graduates who applied to the CaRMS 2002 match

International medical graduates are an important component of the Canadian physician workforce. For most international medical graduates, the principal route to obtaining a residency position in Canada is to apply through the second iteration of the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) match. In order to help inform the work toward integrating unlicensed international medical graduates into Canada's health professional workforce, our objectives were to describe the demographic and educational characteristics of international medical graduate CaRMS applicants and identify their preferred clinical disciplines and practice locations. A 37-item Web-based questionnaire survey was offered to all 659 international medical graduate second-iteration CaRMS 2002 applicants. We collected data on their demographic and educational background and preferred clinical discipline and practice location. Up to 2 follow-up email reminders were sent to nonrespondents. The survey response rate was 70.3% (463/659). Of the respondents, 71.9% had obtained their medical degree in Asia, the Middle East or Eastern Europe: 36.5% had graduated with a medical degree since 1994, and 17.3% since 1997. Most respondents (74.3%) were aged between 30 and 44 years. More than half (54.6%) had completed their medical education in English. Most (69.3%) had done postgraduate training outside Canada. Before coming to Canada, 42.8% had practised medicine for 1-5 years and 45.6% had practised for 6-20 years. The top 5 choices of clinical discipline in Canada were family medicine/general practice (45.6%), internal medicine (14.9%), surgery (7.3%), obstetrics/gynecology (6.7%) and pediatrics (4.8%). Of those who resided in the 4 Western provinces or Nova Scotia, between 76.8% and 86.7% preferred to stay in their own province, and 60%, 51.4% and 37% of those who resided in Newfoundland, Ontario or Quebec respectively preferred to practise in their own province. Second-iteration international medical graduate CaRMS applicants are a heterogeneous group of physicians, some with substantial medical training and experience and others at an earlier stage of their medical career.