Foreign-trained doctor wins licensing lawsuit
An Iranian-born anesthesiologist says he hopes his licensing legal victory will help other foreign-trained doctors in similar situations in New Brunswick.
On Thursday, a judge ruled the College of Physicians and Surgeons of New Brunswick must restore Henry Houshmand’s full licence.
Several foreign-trained doctors in the province have said they can't move elsewhere in Canada without a full licence.
"I think we achieved what we really deserved,” Houshmand told CBC News.
"There was something that had been taken away from us and now we've got it back."
Houshmand had been working in the province since 2000 with a public service licence, which was upgraded to a full licence in 2007.
In 2010, the college, which is the provincial regulatory body for doctors, changed Houshmand’s licence to “conditional” instead of “full” — a change that made it impossible for him to relocate to Ontario because the college there doesn't accept conditional licences.
Houshmand filed a lawsuit against the New Brunswick college for unfairly restricting doctors with medical degrees from foreign medical schools.
The New Brunswick college reclassified its licences in 2010 as part of a Canada-wide effort to standardize how colleges categorize doctors.
But the process is lagging for conditional licences, meaning doctors without full licences have been blocked from moving to other provinces.
Houshmand argued it amounted to a restriction on his ability to practise his profession elsewhere in Canada.
Justice Hugh McLellan of the Court of Queen’s Bench agreed.
The ruling could throw a wrench in the effort to come up with a common set of licensing standards in all provinces.
No one from the college was available to comment on Friday.
