IRCC's bureaucracy ruined my admission
Long story short, I couldn't pass the medical exam and I will never get my study permit before the university cancelled my admission. I wanted to share my story to let other international students know how this can end, especially if you get an abnormal result on your first medical exam and are thinking about trying over and over again to clear it.
I got my admission to a university in Canada for Fall 2025 and did my first medical exam in May 2025. The chest X-ray showed something abnormal, so they wanted me to do a sputum test while a doctor in my country looked into it. The problem is, a sputum culture takes at least 10 weeks, and there is no faster option, even if you are willing to pay for a TB-PCR test. To make things worse, I didn’t even have a cough or any sputum at the time. I just had to cough up whatever liquid I could to submit the samples.
Three months later, the sputum test came back negative. In the meantime, my doctor gave me some expectorant, but I still couldn't produce sputum. So I did a bronchoscopy—they put a tube down into my lung to wash out fluid and check for dead bacteria. Still, no abnormal microorganisms were found. My doctor wrote a certificate stating the probability of me having TB was low, but IRCC wasn't satisfied. They said they needed a "definitive diagnosis."
It makes sense that they need to know the exact cause, but I found it really frustrating that they completely ignored the negative sputum test. Why make me do it if they don't believe the result? It felt like they used it as a free shot: if it’s positive, they can easily reject you, and if it’s negative, they just ignore it and make you do something else.
I got transferred to a better doctor, did a second sputum test, and did a needle biopsy where they pierce the chest to extract liquid directly from the lung. The shadow on the X-ray wouldn't go away, but still, no bacteria were found. Eventually, the doctor figured out it was a cystic lung disease. Basically, I had an abnormal empty pocket in my lung that would occasionally collect fluid, which is what showed up on the X-ray. Having this just meant I had a slightly higher chance of getting a infection, but there was no danger to anyone else.
I happily submitted this "definitive diagnosis" including all the test results, but I still got held back. Why? They didn't even bother to explain. They just asked me to take another chest X-ray after 3 months for no clear reason. Three months! The condition wasn't going to disappear on its own. They also wrote that a "reevaluation from a TB specialist is required." With all that evidence ruling out TB, it felt like we weren't even having the same conversation.
It seems like they only believe positive results. If a doctor says you have TB, they accept it. If a doctor says you don't, they assume the doctor missed it. That’s the only explanation that makes sense.
Out of desperation to save my admission, I finally decided to have surgery to remove that part of my lung. The pathology report afterward revealed the actual cause: lung sequestration. It's just a congenital condition where a small piece of the lung isn't connected to the airways, so fluid gets trapped there and shows up on X-rays. It has nothing to do with TB, poses no danger to public health, and won't cost their healthcare system anything. It was just a useless piece of tissue I was born with.
I sent them the surgical report, and guess what? Another request for a chest X-ray in 3 months.
By this point, a year had passed since my first X-ray. What more did they need to see before making a decision? At times I felt like sending my actual lung to the IRCC office so they could look at it themselves. People might argue that my condition made it harder to rule out TB. Sure, I suppose anyone could have TB hidden somewhere inside them, but that's true for everyone. Who is to say someone won't get infected five minutes after walking out of their X-ray? They literally put scopes and needles in my lung and found nothing. It feels like IRCC relies on X-rays as their absolute standard. If you happen to be born with a structural lung abnormality, it’s basically a dead end.
Throughout the process, I actually started hoping that I just had TB. If you have TB, you take medicine for six months, get cured, and you're free. This is what happens when they suspect you have TB, but you don't actually have it.
I'm not a doctor or an immigration officer, and I've never been to Canada. I don't know how bad TB is there or what IRCC’s exact reasoning is. But everyone online always says "they are just trying to rule out TB," and I really want to argue against that. If your body doesn't fit into a standard X-ray box, think carefully about how much time and health you want to waste on this. I lost my admission, went through invasive procedures and surgery, and got nowhere.
Update: I'm sorry that I didn't explain cystic lung disease and lung sequestration in detail and cause some confusions. Here's what I know: To my understanding, "lung sequestration" isn't a completely different condition—it’s just a more precise diagnosis. While cystic lung disease is a broad term meaning there is an abnormal, fluid-filled pocket (a "cyst") in the lung, lung sequestration specifies exactly what that pocket is. It means the "pocket" is congenital and completely disconnected from the normal bronchial airways and blood supply.