College Closes CAPP Program
The College will not be offering the Clinician Assessment for Practice Program (CAPP) examination going forward and has cancelled the exam scheduled for June, 2015.
Launched in 2005, CAPP was designed to select and support International Medical Graduates (IMGs) who are practice-ready, without any additional formal residency training in Canada. It created a pathway for IMGs to receive provisional licensure to practise with supervision in underserviced communities, while working towards full medical licensure.
This decision will not affect those physicians currently licensed through CAPP. These physicians will continue to receive support and supervision from the College while in practice.
The College annually conducts a review of CAPP as part of its approach to quality assurance. This decision was made by the College’s Council on March 27thbased upon the results of the program’s annual evaluation.
The Medical Council of Canada (MCC) and the Federation of Medical Regulatory Authorities of Canada (FMRAC), with substantial input from the College, have defined new pan‐Canadian standards for practice‐ready assessment (the National Assessment Collaboration ‐ Practice Ready Assessment or NAC‐PRA), involving multiple modes of candidate assessment. It is anticipated NAC-PRA will soon fill the role of identifying IMG’s ready for supervised practice. “It is a new age of assessment of medical professionals. Single point-in-time examinations no longer represent best practices,” says Dr. Gus Grant. “CAPP has been a great success story. It has delivered approximately 100 physicians to underserviced areas, provided supervision, and enabled 99% of those physicians to attain the national standards for licensure. It has been a win-win initiative in my view” says Dr. Grant. “It is now time for it to give way to a national program.” Contact: Ryan Demings Communications Officer Phone: 902-482-2919
College of Physicians and Surgeons of Nova Scotia
E-mail: rdemings@cpsns.ns.ca