Yesterday I noticed a difference between two concepts, which lots of people (including me) might mix up.
1. "medical exam"
This concept is clear, which means that an applicant gets examined at a panel physician, e.g. X-ray, blood test etc. The results are uploaded to eMedical.
2. "medical assessment"
The explanation on www cic.gc.ca/english/resources/tools/medic/assess/index.asp (Date Modified: 2014-05-09) is: "A medical assessment is the review of an applicant's medical file by a Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) medical officer or delegated staff." Hence presumably the original results of a medical exam on eMedical are assessed by CIC's medical officers and then their assessment (maybe with the original results) is passed to CIC visa officers.
www cic.gc.ca/english/resources/tools/medic/assess/using.asp (Date Modified: 2013-05-07) shows:
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Limitations on the immigration medical assessment
A medical assessment is interchangeable and can be used for other immigration categories, unless the medical officer imposed one of the following limitations on the assessment:
The most commonly used limitations are:
* "Assessed as excessive demand exempt only". A new immigration medical examination is required if the applicant applies under an immigration category that is no longer excessive demand exempt (e.g. the foreign national applied as sponsored spouse (FC-1) and now applies as Federal Skilled Worker)
* "Assessed as Temporary Resident only". A new immigration medical examination is required if the applicant applies for permanent resident status or extend his or her stay in Canada.
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The word "interchangeable" doesn't refer to medical exams, but assessments that CIC's medical officers made.
My analysis:
Until now, all the applicants whose permanent residence applications were cancelled received the reason "invalid medical as medical has been ASSESSED for temporary residence only". The verb there is "access". Thus I tend to believe that the cancellation was due to CIC's medical officers, that the applicants' panel physicians didn't make a mistake in medical exam items, and that CIC's visa officers had nothing to do with the cancellation. We haven't seen strong evidence showing any difference between a medical exam for permanent residence and that for temporary residence. Seemingly the cancellation was a fault of CIC's medical officers, or these applicants' physical condition does not fulfil the medical requirements for permanent residence application (if we assume that requirements for permanent residence are more than those for temporary residence).