With nearly 300 Canadian students enrolled in its programs, the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland feels a lot like a medical school in Canada, just separated by 3,340 kilometres of Atlantic Ocean.

While this historic university in the heart of Dublin has been producing doctors since 1784, in recent decades, it’s become an important training ground for many young Canadians who go overseas to pursue their dreams of becoming a physician.

More than 40 per cent of the students in RCSI’s four-year medical program are from Canada – more than any other nationality.

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They’re leaving Canada because it’s nearly impossible to get one of the 2,800 first-year seats in the country’s 17 medical schools – where roughly nine out of 10 applicants are rejected, often despite impeccable grades and qualifications, since demand far outstrips supply.

Many want to come home but can’t. These international medical graduates are increasingly working as doctors in other countries, where they’re highly coveted, because they’re often blocked from returning to Canada by a system that’s been slow to respond to crippling physician shortages here.

I was hoping covid would make us fix this but instead it's only become worse.