Internationally trained dentists voice frustration with credential process in Canada

Dentists unable to get permission to practice in Canada gathered at Yonge-Dundas Square in Toronto on Sunday to voice their frustration.

The demonstration was organized by the Internationally Trained Dentists Association of Canada and among its members are dentists who have credentials in their home country to practice.

Representatives CityNews spoke with said they have had to go through unfair steps to work in their new home — steps the president of the Internationally Trained Dentists Association of Canada called unfair because the steps are more intensive than what new graduates from Canada with no experience have to go through.

“The process that we have to go through, which is called the equivalency process, is long, expensive and just overly burdensome so it can take many individuals three to five years or longer,” Luca Salvador told CityNews on Sunday.

“There are extra exams that we need to take. There [are] three extra ones to prove our equivalency and that’s reasonable to ask us to prove our competency in Canada. The issue is the specific assessments that they ask us to do and the standards and the difficulty of the assessments.”

Dentists from abroad have to go through an equivalency process through the National Dental Examining Board of Canada (NDEB).

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The board’s process includes three tests. If they are able to pass, they will then go through the NDEB certification process that Canadians who graduate from an accredited school would go through. At that point, it means an additional two tests.

“I am here today to talk about the injustice that has been actually ruining my life for the past now five-plus years. I started the process in 2016. I went to the exam and did a perfect job and I still failed,” Hadeel Odeh, a dentist who is originally from Turkey, told CityNews.

“I failed one project out of 18 projects and because of that fail … I had to fail the entire exam. I now have to repeat an eight-hour exam because we are not allowed to make any human errors.”

It’s not just the unfair standards of the tests that people are protesting, but also the costs of the learning materials to prepare as well as the exams.

Internationally Trained Dentists Association of Canada representatives said they don’t want things to be easier, just fair, and that it will only help Canadians.

According to the Canadian Occupational Projection System, there is projected to be a shortage of dentists in the country by 2028.

CityNews contacted the National Dental Examining Board of Canada for a comment, but a response wasn’t received by the broadcast deadline.