Exploring the Contributions of Combined Model Regional Medical Education Campuses to the Physician Workforce.

Purpose: Physician shortages and maldistribution, particularly within family medicine, have led many medical schools worldwide to create regional medical campuses (RMCs) for clerkship training. However, Canadian medical schools have developed a number of RMCs in which all years of training (i.e.

Canadian and immigrant international medical graduates.

Objective: To compare the demographic and educational characteristics of Canadian international medical graduates (IMGs) and immigrant IMGs who applied to the second iteration of the Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) match in 2002.

Design: Web-based questionnaire survey.

Setting: The study was conducted during the second-iteration CaRMS match in Canada.

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

Background: 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.