A job in a new licensing board is within your grasp, and the only thing standing in your way is a few pieces of paper.
Trish Dehmel, Director of CSI Inc. in Halifax, says her job is to help physicians cut through the red tape — allowing them to obtain those documents quickly and easily.
“It can be hard for individuals to contact the right people in some countries — or even to know who to contact — and how to get them to take you seriously,” says Dehmel. “Providing criminal checks is not a priority in some foreign countries, and so they may not attach as much importance to providing the results as we do in North America.”
In some instances, records are centralized to the region in which they lived, searches cannot be conducted nationally, and data may only be obtainable for the past seven years.
A former federal police office, Dehmel knows the industry inside out and has been helping healthcare professionals navigate the system for the last decade.
CSI employees work with healthcare professionals, hospitals, private clinics, and licensing colleges in order to simplify the process of obtaining police clearance checks and certificates of conduct.
The requirements are different for each licensing board. In Nova Scotia, for example, a new physician needs a criminal records search to satisfy the requirements of the College of Physicians and surgeons. If they plan on working for Capital Health or the IWK Health Centre, they will also need a search of the pardoned sex offender database, which requires a set of fingerprints and takes about two weeks.
But it’s not always as easy as it sounds.
“We often work with physicians who are in Canada and apply for a job within a new board, and the board says ‘Well, you worked in Saudi Arabia, so you need to provide a criminal record check from Saudi Arabia,’ or ‘You worked in four different U.S. states. We need checks from all of them,’” explains Dehmel. “That’s where we can help.”
In many cases, a criminal record search can be ordered on CSI’s website using a system called e-Consent. You’ll be asked five “out of wallet” questions about things that only you would know, and answering correctly allows the system to verify your identity without a passport or fingerprints.
While many people still refer to the “vulnerable sector check” that was in place prior to 2009, Dehmel says it’s now a search of the pardoned sex offender database. It involves using fingerprints to ensure a person is not listed in the sexual assault database under any name, in any province. CSI has a portal service with the College of Physicians and Surgeons so the results are reported directly to them.
Dehmel says healthcare professionals are welcome to call CSI with questions about the process, and they have resources and contacts in most countries around the world.
“We provide fast, efficient service, and make the process easier for professionals who need these documents,” says Dehmel. “We’re here to help.”
