The MCC takes steps to better support diversity

Recently, over 2000 candidates took the May 2019 session of the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination (MCCQE) Part II at sites across Canada. This exam is a two-day clinical exam that assesses core competence, knowledge, skills and attitudes essential for all physicians.

In this high-stakes exam environment, candidates must go through a strict security protocol to confirm their identity. This serves to ensure the exam’s integrity and security. Following this session, it was brought to the attention of the Medical Council of Canada (MCC) on social media, via post exam session feedback, and through proactive follow up by our exam team, that MCC exam day policies related to confirming a candidate’s identity were not consistently applied by exam site staff at all locations. Some candidates wearing religious head coverings were subjected to extra scrutiny and/or identification verification measures that were more intrusive than those applied for their colleagues.

The MCC is taking this issue very seriously. As a leader in the assessment of physicians, the MCC is committed to respecting and encouraging diversity. We believe that every candidate taking MCC exams should be treated equally, respectfully and fairly, regardless of their religion, ethnic origin or needs. To prevent a reoccurrence, the MCC will conduct a review of MCC exam day policies and strike a working group to review exam day practices and policies. Following this exercise, MCC policies will be reinforced with exam site supervisors and during pre-orientation with exam site staff. The MCC and exam site staff will also receive diversity and inclusion training to be able to better support all candidates.

The MCC is taking these actions to ensure that moving forward, MCC policies are clear and consistently applied across all exam sites. The MCC invites any candidate who has relevant information for the working group or was impacted by identification measures and did not have an opportunity to fill out an incident report at their exam session, to share their concerns via their physiciansapply.ca account.