In most countries, the medical profession requires occupational licenses and only persons with a medical license bestowed either by a specified government-approved professional association or a government agency are authorized to practice medicine. Licenses are not granted automatically to all people with medical degrees. A medical school graduate must receive a license to practice medicine before he or she can be called a physician in a legal sense, a process that usually entails testing or examinations by a medical board. The medical license is the documentation of authority to practice medicine within a certain locality.
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Canada
Canada requires that the applicants' school is listed in the international medical schools be registered in the World Directory of Medical Schools, and then must apply to sit the "Medical Council of Canada Evaluating Examination"
China
China issued the <<Law on Licensed Physician>> in 1995. The law required all newly graduated medical students to sit the National Medical Licensing Examination (NMLE) regulated by the National Medical Examination Center (NMEC) in order to be able to register with the local regulatory body. The law also requires that to be eligible to sit the exam, one student should have completed one years internship after obtaining his/her primary medical qualification (i.e. Bachelor of Medicine). The exam is a two part exam which includes a Clinical Skill (CS) test and a General Written (GW) test. The CS test consists of many stations, candidates must pass the CS test in order to sit for the GW test. The GW test consists of 4 papers candidates have 2.5 hours for each paper, running for 2 days. The CS is held in July, followed by GW in September each year.
Colombia
The Instituto Colombiano para el Fomento de la Educación Superior (ICFES) and the Ministry of Education regulate the medical schools that are licensed to offer medical degrees. After completing all the schools' requirements to obtain a medical degree, physicians must serve the "obligatory social service" (in rural areas, research, public health or special populations e.g. orphan children) which usually lasts one year. After completing the social service, the "medical registration" may be obtained at the governor's office (Gobernación) of the Department (province/state) in which the obligatory term was served. This registration is homologous to a license in other countries and authorizes the physician to practice medicine in all the national territory. However, in order to practice in other departments, an inscription in that department must be performed. Unlike the US, there is no official licensing exam for medical graduates in Colombia, since this responsibility is delegated in medical schools upon receiving permission to confer medical degrees.
Germany
In Germany, licensing of doctors ("Approbation") is the responsibility of the state governments. Licensed doctors are compulsory members of "Ärztekammern" (literally: "Physician chambers"), which are medical associations organized on state level. Criteria for licensing of doctors are regulated in the "Approbationsordnung für Ärzte", which is a piece of federal law.
India
In India one has to pass the final MBBS examination and has to undergo training for one year as an intern in a recognised hospital by the Medical Council of India in order to obtain a certification.Foreign medical graduates need to take the licensing examination known as Foreign Medical Graduates Examination (FMGE) conducted by the National Board of Examinations (NBE) They can practise medicine throughout the country after certifying themselves as per Indian Medical Council Act, 1956, a Doctor registered with any one state medical council gets his name automatically included in the Indian Medical Register and he is thereby entitled to practise medicine anywhere in India. The MCI Ethics Committee observed in a meeting held on September 2, 2004 that " there is no necessity of registration in more than one state medical council because any doctor, who has registered with any state medical council is automatically registered in the Indian Medical Register and also by virtue of Section 27 of the IMC Act, 1956, a person, whose name is included in the IMR, can practise anywhere in india. The Registered Doctors with various State Medical Councils across India upto the year 2015 can be checked in the official website of INDIAN MEDICAL REGISTRY search www.mciindia.org by just typing the name of the doctor.
UK
The term "Medical License" is US-centric terminology. In the UK and in other commonwealth countries the analogous instrument is called registration; i.e. being on the register or being/getting struck off (the register). The General Medical Council is the regulatory body for doctor's licensing in the UK. Currently, there are two types of basic registration: "Provisional Registration" and "Full Registration", and two types of specialty registration: "Specialist Registration" and "GP registration". In November 2009, the GMC introduced the "licence to practise", and it is required by law that to practise medicine in the UK, all doctors need to be registered and hold a licence to practise. The registration information for all doctors holding or that have previously held a license in the UK is available online at the GMC website.
United States
In the United States, medical licenses are usually granted by individual states. Only those with medical degrees from schools listed in the AVICENNA Directory for medicine or the FAIMER International Medical Education Directory are permitted to apply for medical licensure.
The federal government does not grant licenses. A physician practicing in a federal facility, federal prison, US Military, and/or an Indian Reservation may have a license from any state, not just the one they are residing in. The practice of "tele-medicine" has made it common for physicians to consult or interpret images and information from a distant location. Some states have special licensure for this.
The licensure process for most physicians takes between 3 and 6 months due to the extensive background checks, educational, training, and historical primary source verifications which are required.
Criticism
An article from 2013 describes the road to licensing in Canada as "the path through immigration, residency training, licensure and employment promises to remain a difficult road to navigate", while emphasizing that there is currently and will be an increase in demand for healthcare. This emphasizes that there are a number of barriers that doctors face when it comes to practicing, yet there is a very high demand for doctors.
Beyond the more general criticisms of occupational licensing that licensing increases costs and fails to improve quality, licensing in the medical profession specifically has been criticized as failing to enforce the standard practices they are charged with enforcing. In 1986, Inspector General at the US Health Department said that medical boards took "strikingly few disciplinary actions" for physician misconduct. There have been a number of cases involving patient deaths where physicians only had their licenses removed years after multiple wrongful patient deaths had happened.
Also, it has been said that because hospitals have had more legal burden placed on them in recent decades, they have more of an incentive to require their physicians to be competent. State medical boards have increased the number of disciplinary actions against physicians since the 1980s.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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