L'avenir

I am in love with the country.

I love its open spaces. I love its friendliness, and the fact that people are genuinly interested in where you come from, and what you're doing here. I love its coffee. I love its awareness in the environment. I love its bilinguality and the fact that people say things like "Quebec is part of the national psyche". I love its pancakes.

I love this city because at 8pm on a Sunday night you can go into a second hand clothes shop and look at old navy uniforms and ballgowns. I love its old houses painted in bright colours. I love the fact that people greet you with "Salut, hello" to see which you respond to. I love that the streets are alive all night, and people are happy. I even love the ongoing roadworks that girls step through in their stillettos on St Laurent.

In short, I want to move here. But it's actually very difficult. To apply for a residency (the equivalent of Specialist training, but which is done striaght after med school), I need to take two exams, one of which has to be taken in Canada. I'd also need to get permanent residence in Quebec (but why would they offer me residence without a job?). And only then could I even apply.

It's a hell of a lot of paperwork, but I could do it if I really wanted to (this elective required a lot of paperwork, and I managed that). But it also costs £500 to enter the exam. So I'd have to be certain about it. That'd take two years, and who's to say I wouldn't have a partner by then, a house, commitments, etc? It'd be 4 years here, by which time I'd be a Canadian specialist so couldn't go back to the UK without reconverting back etc. So I'd kind of be signing up to emigrate.

But I know people at med school who are already taking USMLE (the American equivalent). What future does the NHS hold? Maybe there won't be enough training posts anyway for my year group in 2 years (scary thought that I'll be applying for ST in two years...) so it'd be worth having a back up.

I'd love to do it. I just don't know if I can. Everything is set up for me in the UK- I'm on the conveyer belt and will be packaged off into the plastic bag of one speciality or another. But to move- that'd be jumping off my conveyer belt, filling in a zillion forms and trying to hitchhike to a supermarket in a different town (imagine I'm a carton of milk) just to get on a different supermarket's conveyer belt.

Oh but I love this country. I want so much to come back, but why do they have to make it so damn hard?!

Maybe I should just marry a Canadian...