So it turns out that foreign med schools are not as good after all...

[MacGyver]

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Everybody keeps spewing the politically correct party line that foreign med schools are just as good as the US.

Here's some data to blow that idea out of the water.

This pdf file lists the discipline rates for various med schools. Note that 90% of the list is make up of foreign med schools.

http://www.ctnow.com/media/acrobat/2003-06/8395716.pdf

 

[lilywhites]

I'm not going to dispute the findings, but I've always heard that most of what you'll learn as a doctor, you'll learn during residency, and that in actuality, you don't really learn all that much in medical school.

Since all doctors practicing in the United States are required to do residency in the United States and considering that foreign doctors have harder times getting into strong residency programs in the United States because residency programs do favor graduates from US Medical Schools--wouldn't that explain part of the findings?

 

[ny skindoc]

The admission standards for many of the schools listed are low.That means that almost anyone who wants to enter can do so.Passing the USMLE is required for internship but it keeps few people out of the system.Thus many individuals with very borderline skills have made it through Gualdaljara and similar type places which have essentially open admissions policies-(mostly for US citizens unable to get into LCME accredited schools).Its not surprising that Cornell is very low on the complaint list.The more selective an institution is the better students they will attract in the first place and that will show itself down the line. However many Guadalajara graduates are excellent and accomplished physicians and non UScitizenFMGs often have more training than their US counterparts.Cultural and language differeces no doubt account for some of their problems.
Howard and Meharry are a unique situation in the types of students they focus on training.

 

[skypilot]

Thanks for an excellent article. I was floored by the number of foreign schools and doctors represented in the list. I copied a small part of the list here.

Note that according to the list St Georges in Grenada has about 1/2 the discipline rate of UC Irvine!

Also University of Baghdad and Shiraz University of Iran are rated better than the University of Texas!

Autonomous University Of Guadalajara (Mexico) 5975 155 2.59
University Of California At Irvine 4108 90 2.19
Loma Linda University 5670 121 2.13
University Of Cairo (Egypt) 1235 22 1.78
University Of Ottawa (Canada) 565 10 1.77
University Of Manitoba (Canada) 879 15 1.71
American U. Of The Caribbean (Montserrat) 1766 30 1.70
University Of Texas, Galveston 7456 125 1.68
University Of Baghdad (Iraq) 629 10 1.59
Hahnemann University 6433 93 1.45
Emory University 4372 63 1.44
Medical College Of Georgia 6054 87 1.44
Medical College Of Wisconsin 6389 88 1.38
University Of Tennessee 7832 107 1.37
Shiraz University (Iran) 561 7 1.25
Finch University Of Health Sciences 5066 63 1.24
Tulane University 6671 82 1.23
St. George's University (Grenada) 2586 31 1.20

 

[weirdo700]

I believe that they should have used residency programs in the survey. My primary care physician did medical school outside the U.S., but I still think she is one of the best Doctors I have met. People that take an elitist attitude towards foreign medical students are just rude and should take a step back and listen to themselves.