A policy shift in Ontario has sparked outrage from foreign-trained doctors, many of whom say they were days away from applying to medical residency when the rules changed.The new rule applies to international medical graduates — doctors trained outside of Canada who have permanent residency or Canadian citizenship. It now requires them to have attended an accredited Ontario high school for two or more years to be eligible for residency positions in the province.Critics say it’s not just unfair, but short-sighted, at a time when millions of Ontarians can’t find a family doctor.For Ali Amiri, an international medical graduate from Iran, becoming a doctor in Canada hasn’t been easy.“The journey is really tough. There are a lot of exams. There are a lot of trainings that you have to go through before you will be eligible to apply for residency programs,” he said.Amiri passed his Canadian exam, completed observerships and was preparing to apply for residency, but was then met with a change to the policy to be eligible for residency in the middle of the application period, which ends at the end of November.“It is really, really unfair. It’s really discriminatory, and we do hope that they change it. It’s not something that we thought was going to happen in Ontario. We spent thousands of dollars. We spent a lot of time, and we’ve been under a lot of stress to get to this point,” he said.“We are looking for a fair and transparent process. We want them to amend this policy, the new policy, to how it was two weeks ago, and make equal opportunities for everyone to apply for residency here,” Amiri said.Meanwhile, Ontario is in the middle of a health-care crisis. According to the Ontario College of Family Physicians, more than 2.5 million residents don’t have a family doctor, and experts predict that number could reach four million by 2026.The Ministry of Health said they’re delivering more opportunities for Ontarians who started their medical education abroad to complete their postgraduate training in Ontario.In a statement, they say in part, “To be clear, international medical graduates who do not meet the specified criteria will be eligible, as they currently are, to participate in the second round of the match alongside remaining Canadian medical graduates and Ontario IMGs.”However, international medical graduates argue they’re already here, and they’re trained, tested, and ready to work. All they say is lacking is opportunity.The Internationally Trained Physicians of Canada is urging the province to drop the high school education requirement for first-round matching, and launched a letter-writing campaign to push for immediate change.