GoToMedSchool.com files suit vs multiple states.

[ebaydove]

Alliance medical institute lawyers recently filed a multi state lawsuit in regard torotation availability in Govt hospitals. It's pretty interesting because the lawsuit claims that US medical schools/hospitals give preferential treatment to US medical students as opposed to us citizen-foreign medical students who attend medical schools in caribbean islands, Europe, Mexico, etc.
Their claim is that this treatment of foreign students doesnt show equal treatment under US laws. They claim further that hospitals should be held as public organizations because they receive govt funding...
They also claim that they represent the interests of all foreign students and have the backing of most caribbean, mexican and European medical schools. Is your school part of this lawsuit?

Is this confrontation a good thing, or would it blow up in their faces?
Please post your thoughts on this, from your school, and your school's administration's opinions.......
thx all in advance

 

[Jasminegab]

This the first I've heard of this law suit. Thus, I cannot speak for my school's admin. My school has made mention that they are working with other organizations to petition the states on its laws of approved and denied schools based on curriculum. However, my thoughts are that this will be a long process being that many states are fighting to slow incoming IMG's. CA along with several other states are already setting into law which schools they prefer and approve of. This approval is based on curriculum which has to be simular to that of the US medical schools. Since many off-shore medical schools (International medical schools) do not have simular requirements for admission, many such graduates are being limited in which US hospitals they can do rotations and even residencies.

Due to the shortage of physicians graduating from US medical schools, I do pray that there will be some set standard someday in which Quality of education becomes more important than focusing on if the school has the same requirements as the US since the US does not set the standard for healthcare. As I'm am sure that you know, our healthcare system is in a major crises right now and the last thing we need is to limit or ban qualified physician from off-shore schools.

I do know for sure that in Philadelphia, Pa, physicians are leaving practice, retiring early or simply leaving the state resutling in a massive shortage of physicians, nurses and other healthcare workers. This is becoming a huge epidemic which many citizens of the US will feel in the next 10yrs.

I'm not sure what our government is working on since I'm not into politics. Nonetheless, with the decreasing number of applicants to US medical schools and the increasing number of applicants to off-shore medical schools, there will be proponents of this move. Many states feel that more time and effort needs to be put into increasing the number of applicants to US medical school rather than just replacing the decreasing amount of MD's graduating from off-shore medical schools.

As you can see from my post, this is a battle that is just beginning. My feeling is that things will get worse before they get better since it will take much more captial then what most americans are willing to spend to just open more medical schools here in the US to over compensate for the off-shore medical schools. Yet, there is a light at the end of the tunnel since public demand always wins in the end. It will just take time.

 

[okiamhot]

It is about time!
We are citizens of the big and glorious usa, then why should one be treated differently!

besides, I think that it is great that those real founding fathers who start all the med. schools outside USA, their philosophy fit exactly with the founding dudes of the usa.

everyone is created equal. And people always say that usa is the place where if you work hard, you will make it. So becoming a md should also be a part of equal access opportunity for all.