News
At the Medical Council of Canada (MCC), we continue to actively advance our 2024-2027 strategic plan, with a focus on streamlining our programs of assessment, enhancing support for international medical graduates (IMGs) and internationally trained physicians (ITPs), increasing global collaboration, and overseeing technological transformation. We hosted our 2025 Annual Meeting in October, with talks and workshops with our interested parties and partner organizations focused on inclusive and equitable health care, developing workplace-based assessment models, and using data to transform health-workforce planning, among other current topics of shared interest. At the meeting, Dr. Gordon Giddings stepped into the role of president of Council, while Ms. Levonne Louie assumed the role of vice-president.
Demand for MCC examinations continues, with record-breaking numbers of candidates sitting for both the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination (MCCQE) Part I, and the National Assessment Collaboration (NAC) Examination in recent months. With the absence of a January session, 5,274 candidates took the modernized MCCQE Part I in April 2025, compared with 4,040 in April 2024. A further 1,947 candidates registered for the NAC Examination in September, an increase of 478 candidates from a year earlier, and the largest number ever registered for the exam.
To better meet candidates’ needs, MCCQE Part I results are now being delivered more quickly and are now available four weeks after the last day of the January, August, and October sessions, and five weeks after the last day of the April session. Further, in July 2025, we completed a rigorous standard-setting exercise with a panel of physician experts from across the country who recommended a new pass score for the MCCQE Part I.
At the same time, our organization is moving forward with plans to rebrand MCC examinations. Beginning with the April 2026 session, the MCCQE Part I will be renamed the Medical Council of Canada Qualifying Examination (MCCQE), a change that better reflects the structure of the exam and simplifies how it is referenced by candidates, regulators, and medical institutions.
We were delighted to see the Physician Assessment Centre of Excellence (PACE) in Nova Scotia recognized with an innovation award from the Coalition for Physician Enhancement (CPE) in October. This award celebrates the PACE approach to licensing internationally trained physicians (ITPs), a model that brings together assessment, supervision, and patient care under one roof. As a partner, the MCC supports PACE with training, tools, and digital platforms. This fall, a team from the MCC travelled to Halifax to train 15 physician assessors, each of whom will assess up to 50 ITPs per year, with another 24 trained to the MCC’s national assessor standard in New Brunswick, including PRA assessors, non-PRA college assessors, and staff members.
On October 28, MCC CEO Dr. Viren Naik addressed the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health on the impact of immigration policy on health care, stressing the importance of clarifying pathways for physicians coming to Canada, providing more opportunities for supervised practice, including through bridging programs, clinical assistant roles, and expanding practice-ready assessment models. He also spoke to the role of digital platforms like the National Registry of Physicians in reducing redundancy, supporting mobility, and strengthening workforce planning in Canada.
The MCC has seen a marked increase in the number of U.S. medical graduates (USMGs) opening physiciansapply.ca accounts. Opening an account typically signals an interest in pursuing medical licensure in Canada. In the six-month period between December 2024 and May 2025, USMGs created 585 new accounts, compared with just 86 a year earlier.
To help IMGs and ITPs better understand how health care is delivered in Canada, we recently launched a series of curated learning materials, called ‘resource maps,’ that put the spotlight on key topics in Canadian medical practice. Designed as structured orientation materials to build context in areas like mental health, cultural safety, and patient-centered communication, among other topics, the resource maps highlight credible sources to help learners begin exploring important subjects in Canadian health care.
Our second webinar, Specialist licensure in Canada – paths to practise for internationally trained physicians, saw people tune in from more than 83 countries to learn about the main routes to licensure and certification for specialists seeking to practise medicine in Canada. The live event, which took place in July 2025, featured Ms. Chantal Benoit, Manager of the Credentials Unit in the Office of Standards and Assessments at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (RCPSC), Ms. Corinne de Bruin, Executive Director of Registration with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia, and Dr. Filipe Santos, IMG consultant, in conversation with MCC CEO, Dr. Viren Naik.
Leaders from the MCC continue to strengthen our relationships and thought leadership in licensure and assessment. This summer, we participated in several international conferences, including AMEE (The International Association for Health Professions Education), held in Barcelona, Spain, the International Conference on Medical Regulation (IAMRA) held in Dublin, Ireland, and the International Medical Graduate Conference, which was hosted by the Australian Medical Council. All three conferences underscored that current challenges in regulation, IMG recruitment, and the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) are opportunities to reinforce the MCC’s role as subject matter experts and to engage with IMGs about licensure in Canada. While in Ireland, our team met with students and staff from several medical schools where approximately 300 Canadians studying abroad (CSAs) graduate each year to explain the pathways to postgraduate training and licensure in Canada.
In November, the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta acquired the MCC’s national, multi-source feedback (MSF) program, MCC 360, which it will continue to make available to physicians in Canada, relaunching as MSF360 in 2026.
We also continue our technological transformation initiatives, including the implementation of COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) solutions to enhance user experiences while improving data security and operational efficiency. CEO Dr. Viren Naik also continues to champion the growth of artificial intelligence as a critical tool for the future of health-care delivery and assessment, and we continue to seek ways to integrate AI into work processes.