What a locum is
The word comes from the Latin locum tenens, "holding the place". In Canada the short form is the everyday term: a locum is a professional who temporarily fills a role that someone else normally holds, or who adds capacity where a service cannot be staffed by its permanent team alone.
A locum might cover a single day in a family practice, a week of emergency department shifts in a regional hospital, or several months of a parental leave. The work can be in a clinic, a hospital, long-term care, community care or, for some professions, virtual care. What makes it a locum is that it is time-limited and tied to a specific need, rather than an open-ended position.
Locum work sits alongside two other ways of working that many clinicians combine over a career: contract roles, which are longer and more structured, and permanent positions. Plenty of professionals do locum work between permanent roles, early in practice while deciding where to settle, or later in a career when they want more control over their schedule.
Who works as a locum
Physicians are the best-known locums, particularly in family medicine, emergency medicine, hospital medicine and anaesthesiology, but the model is used across the health professions. Registered nurses and nurse practitioners take short-term assignments in hospitals, clinics and community settings. Pharmacists provide relief coverage in community and hospital pharmacies. Dentists and dental hygienists cover practices during absences. Allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, occupational therapists, respiratory therapists and medical radiation technologists also fill temporary gaps.
Each of these professions is regulated separately, and each has its own rules about who may practise and where. That matters more for locums than for anyone else, because a locum is, by definition, often working somewhere new.
Why clinics and hospitals need coverage
The reasons are ordinary and predictable, which is why good planning helps so much. Common ones include:
- Vacations, conferences and continuing education, when the usual clinician is away for days or weeks.
- Parental, medical and other extended leaves, which can run for months.
- Rural and remote communities where a small team carries a large area and a single absence leaves a real gap.
- Seasonal and unexpected surges, such as respiratory illness seasons, tourist seasons or a sudden vacancy.
- Recruitment gaps, when a permanent position is open and the service has to keep running while it is filled.
Licensing is provincial and territorial
Canada has no national licence to practise a health profession. Each province and territory regulates its own health professions, usually through a college or order for each profession, and in some territories through a government licensing office. A physician licensed in Ontario is licensed by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO) to practise in Ontario, not elsewhere.
In practice this means the first question for any locum outside your home jurisdiction is whether you hold, or can obtain in time, registration where the work is. Labour mobility rules make moving between Canadian jurisdictions easier than it once was, but they do not remove the need to register. Our guide on working in another province or territory walks through the general steps.
Beyond the licence, most assignments carry their own requirements: professional liability protection, current certifications such as ACLS for some acute care roles, a criminal record check (a vulnerable sector check where the work involves vulnerable people), references, and facility items such as a site orientation or hospital privileges.
What to expect from a locum opportunity
A well-described locum opportunity tells you enough to decide without a chain of follow-up emails. At a minimum, look for:
- The dates and shift pattern, including hours, call and weekend expectations.
- The offered rate, and how compensation is structured (for example an hourly rate or, for physicians in some community practices, an arrangement tied to billings).
- The facility and site, the setting (clinic, hospital, long-term care and so on) and the specialty or role.
- The required licence, certifications and any facility-specific items you must complete before the first shift.
- Practical details: travel, accommodation if offered, orientation, and the systems you will use, such as the electronic medical record.
How to evaluate an opportunity
Start with scope. Make sure the work fits your training and current practice, and that the patient population and setting are ones you are comfortable with. A rural locum can mean a broader scope and less on-site backup than you are used to.
Then check readiness. Confirm your licence covers the jurisdiction, your liability protection covers the type of work, and every certification will still be valid on the last day of the assignment, not only the first. Build in time for anything that needs renewing.
Finally, get the terms clear before you start: the rate, the schedule, cancellation expectations, who you report to on site, and how you will be paid. On most assignments these terms are agreed directly between you and the organization, so write them down.
How LocuPedia fits
LocuPedia is a Canadian connection, credentialing and workforce marketplace. Clinics, hospitals and other healthcare organizations publish coverage needs, and verified clinicians review locum, contract and permanent opportunities with the specialty, facility, dates, requirements and offered rate shown before they apply. Openings are visible to registered clinicians only.
You keep your licences, insurance, certifications and identity documents in one credential record, verified once and reused for every application, and you are told before something expires. LocuPedia is always free for clinicians. It does not take a percentage of your pay: you and the organization agree terms directly, and LocuPedia does not process, collect, hold, transfer, invoice, settle or guarantee compensation between clinicians and organizations.
Before you accept
This guide is general information, not legal, licensing or professional advice. Requirements differ by profession, province or territory, and facility, and they change. Always confirm your registration, scope and any assignment-specific requirements with the relevant regulator, and with your liability protection provider, before you accept work.