Canada

You can still streamline the process and make it so that it's not one size fits all. You can have bilateral agreements of credentials recognition. There is no reason for example an Italian trained doctor (anecdotal story I happen to know) would have to go back to med school to practice in Canada.

I mean, you're getting down votes but it is true. I know of Canadians who have travelled abroad to get their doctorates because it's faster and they don't need as high grades to get it, and the training is less rigorous, and then come back to Canada with their degrees to get a job.

You don't have to lower requirements. Many foreign trained doctors would meet requirements for Canadian doctors.

There are ways to ensure competency and license foreign doctors through clinical assessments and standardized testing.

There is simply no will for this from a beaureaucratic perspective. I personally know of a few foreign physicians that have jumped through the hoops only to join a practice and be treated as second class citizens. Canada is great but not work / take call every holiday great.

Provincial governments have no issue maintaining a doctor shortage because they don't have the money to pay for more physician services.

I work under several foreign trained engineers, the quality of their work is absolutely unacceptable and has cost ridiculous sums of money. Anyone who intends to work in Canada in a job which requires a degree or years of training should be examined with just as much scrutiny as Canadian students.

Anecdote != evidence but god damnt, if you can't find 1000 stories exactly like mine.

You don't have to lower the requirements - you just have to make it easier and more affordable to pass local competency exams and get a license.

FTA:

we're looking for competence, not equivalence. That actually doesn't change the bar, we're still looking for a competent physician, but it broadens the number of people who [can] apply.