The country's health-care system is suffering from an acute shortage of doctors — even as hundreds of qualified Canadian physicians trained abroad are turned away each year because of a tangle of red-tape and bias, experts say. Canada is passing up a chance to add hundreds of these Canadian doctors to a strained system because, critics say, tight-fisted provincial governments have restricted the number of residency spots — and because the system explicitly privileges students who went to Canadian medical schools. In a statement, the Royal College said it considers residents who completed medical school outside of Canada to be "important contributors to a robust education environment and future health workforce," and it is currently considering some "alternate pathways" to streamline the system