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Foreign doctors should face tougher exams, study says
BBC ^ | 18 April 2014 | Staff

Posted on 04/19/2014 8:06:20 PM PDT by steve86

Tests taken by foreign doctors who want to work in the NHS should be made harder to pass to bring them in line with UK standards, a study has said.

Research by University College London found a "performance gap" between international and UK medical graduates.

It said pass marks for entry exams sat by international doctors should therefore be set "considerably higher".

But the British International Doctors Association disputed the findings and called for a standardised test for all.

The research, commissioned by the General Medical Council (GMC), said 1,300 foreign doctors a year passed the competency exams, which assess clinical and language skills.

But it warned their subsequent performance indicated that half of them should not have qualified.

It suggested raising the pass mark from 63 to 76%.

Chris McManus, professor of psychology and medical education at UCL, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme this was the easy solution for the short term.

"In the longer term, I think there probably has to be a national qualifying exam which would be sat by everybody. But that's actually surprisingly hard to put in place," he said.

Prof McManus added: "The evidence is that some of those at the bottom end of the distribution are not performing as well.

"I have to emphasise, many of those at the top end are extremely good and the NHS depends on them. They're experts. They're specialists and so on." 'Tremendous contribution'

Figures showed that in the five years to 2012, 669 doctors were struck off or suspended - 420 of those had trained abroad.

Umesh Prabhu, national vice-chairman of the British International Doctors Association (BIDA), said he would only support raising pass marks if there was proof all doctors were tested to the same standard.

"Overseas doctors have contributed tremendously to the National Health Service," Dr Prabhu told the BBC.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events; United Kingdom
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To: umgud

I’d prefer medical skills to English... We already have plenty of Doctors with no skills either English or medical.
We do have lots of Doctors with papers...


21 posted on 04/19/2014 9:29:36 PM PDT by Deagle (ues)
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To: Gay State Conservative

See them a lot and Filipino nurses


22 posted on 04/19/2014 9:31:10 PM PDT by morphing libertarian
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To: umgud

Thank you, I had forgotten about it, so gave me a chance to fix some typo’s!


23 posted on 04/19/2014 9:41:06 PM PDT by entropy12
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To: cloudmountain

>The USA has high standards. It is that simple.

There will be a shortage of primary care doctors who are willing to take O-Care or Medicade patients so these standards will erode. Cuban doctors make around $25 a month. HHS should ne able to rent some from Cuba cheap.

CC


24 posted on 04/19/2014 10:07:48 PM PDT by Captain Compassion
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To: steve86
"Overseas doctors have contributed tremendously to the National Health Service," Mr. Prabhu told the BBC.

Yes, just not in positive ways.

25 posted on 04/20/2014 12:07:51 AM PDT by setha (It is past time for the United States to take back what the world took away.)
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To: entropy12
My kid just took the MCAT exam. It is required to get admission in a US medical school. It was quite tough and comprehensive exam. So I am confident doctors trained in US must be quit competent.

Me too.
My husband and I lived in Saudi Arabia for five years and the company brought in doctors from many countries OTHER than the U.S. American doctors wouldn't come near the KSA with a 10-foot pole. It was very interesting.

When I had to see a doctor and it wasn't an emergency, I would fly home to California. I only had one emergency. I stepped on a NASTY little nail once and it got caught in my big toe.

========================================

Did y’all hear about the doctor in UK who was operating on a woman with diagnosed appendicitis and removed her ovary instead? Of course the infected appendix brought her back to hospital in 2 days with severe pain, and she died in the hospital during or after another surgery. That doctor had a Muslim name and was a foreign doctor.

Not surprising. If you think the U.K. is bad, with its Muslim doctors, you should try India where their doctors are trained there. India has a superiority complex and think that everything they are, do and make is superior to anything else in the rest of the world.
SCARY.

26 posted on 04/20/2014 6:46:56 AM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: Captain Compassion
The USA has high standards. It is that simple.
There will be a shortage of primary care doctors who are willing to take O-Care or Medicade patients so these standards will erode. Cuban doctors make around $25 a month. HHS should ne able to rent some from Cuba cheap.
CC

So true.

Thank goodness Obama falls under the two-term rule.

It's really up to the GOP to bring forth a candidate OTHER than a Mormon. They believe that Jesus and Lucifer were brothers.
Where, o where is there another RR?

27 posted on 04/20/2014 6:51:20 AM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: cloudmountain

Actually I had very good experience with two India trained doctors in USA. First was my problem with chronic tonsillitis. American trained doctors kept giving me anti-bio-tics with no cure. Then I saw an Indian doc who looked in my throat with a candle light if you can believe it, and told me to forget the meds and just gargle with warm salt water 4 times a day. Few days later my throat was like new!

Next experience was my dizzy spells and elevated heart rate in the mornings. My primary physician ordered every imaginable test, but my problem continued. Later we moved to a small town in Northern Cali, and I saw a sikh doctor trained in India. He diagnosed my problem as cyclic elevated blood pressure which occurs only in the mornings. He put me on a mild HBP med and my problem disappeared.

Peter Drucker rates The Medical college in New Delhi as the best in the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjB_Tf7Cy3A&feature=related


28 posted on 04/20/2014 8:54:03 AM PDT by entropy12
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To: entropy12
Then I saw an Indian doc who looked in my throat with a candle light if you can believe it, and told me to forget the meds and just gargle with warm salt water 4 times a day. Few days later my throat was like new!

That's good. My wife is from India and has offered many helpful health suggestions along the way, often involving turmeric/curcumin, garlic, and/or neem.

29 posted on 04/20/2014 9:38:18 AM PDT by steve86 (Acerbic by nature not nurture)
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To: steve86

re: foreign trained doctors in the US. I, too, have had some wonderful experiences with them. But when I went through the hospital visit from hell, a few of those foreign doctors who worked for large practices were questionable, couldn’t answer questions, one couldn’t even read English to avoid prescriptions that shouldn’t be taken together. It’s like anything else in medicine....there are no absolutes in quality of care.


30 posted on 04/20/2014 9:42:20 AM PDT by grania
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To: entropy12
1. Actually I had very good experience with two India trained doctors in USA. First was my problem with chronic tonsillitis. American trained doctors kept giving me anti-bio-tics with no cure. Then I saw an Indian doc who looked in my throat with a candle light if you can believe it, and told me to forget the meds and just gargle with warm salt water 4 times a day. Few days later my throat was like new!

Perhaps those Indian doctors were trained in the USA. So many, many of them are.

Also, if any doctor has a problem with chronic tonsillitis then that doctor's degree isn't worth the paper it's written on. You are CERTAINLY not first, only or last person on the planet to have it. Gargling with warm salt water was one of my mother's prescriptions for throat problems and she was no graduate of medical school.

====================================

2.Next experience was my dizzy spells and elevated heart rate in the mornings. My primary physician ordered every imaginable test, but my problem continued. Later we moved to a small town in Northern Cali, and I saw a sikh doctor trained in India. He diagnosed my problem as cyclic elevated blood pressure which occurs only in the mornings. He put me on a mild HBP med and my problem disappeared.

Again, maybe the sikh doctor was trained in the USA. He WAS living in northern California.

I remember when California had that bump of Sikh doctors. These Sikhs wear the turbans but in California all motorcycle drivers and riders are required to wear helmets.
WELL! Sikhs refused to wear the helmets because they wouldn't fit over their turbans. There was a year long battle. Hahaha, one Sikh tried to get a helmet "to fit" OVER his turban. That was TOO funny for words.
The Sikhs stated RELIGION. They tried everything. Finally, the Sikhs lost and they had to wear the helmet.

Again, you are not the FIRST, last or only human being with elevated BP--even in mornings only.
And, if there wasn't a doctor around to give you MILD high blood pressure medication, then you were being treated by QUACKS, not doctors. My father's family was riddled with BP problems so I became acquainted with that at a very early age. Much of my father's family passed away because of it.
This planet has a TON of people with those problems.

Question: if this Sikh doctor was so great, why wasn't he back in his country of origin helping the poor Sikhs in northern India? SURELY their need is greater than those folks in northern California.
Just curious.

Sikhs here have a problem here with finding temples after their own faith. It's not an easy place to practice Sikhism. He is a long way from the home of Guru Narak. Sikhism so very foreign to Judism-Christianity.

=======================================

Peter Drucker rates The Medical college in New Delhi as the best in the world.

From Google: Peter Ferdinand Drucker was an Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. Wikipedia

So, an industrialist is now deciding on where the best medical college is. Hmmmm. Maybe he knows where to buy the best hot dogs too.

=========================================

Also from Google: The absolute entropy (S rather than ΔS) was defined later, using either statistical mechanics or the third law of thermodynamics.

Maybe your name, henceforth, should be ABSOLUTE entropy. It DOES have a certain ring to it.

=========================================

A very blessed Easter to you and yours.

31 posted on 04/20/2014 2:28:48 PM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: cloudmountain

Both those doctors were imports from India. I knew one of them really well because my wife was the office manager at his practice. The other doc had his graduation certificate from an Indian university on the wall.


32 posted on 04/20/2014 4:26:30 PM PDT by entropy12
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To: cloudmountain

You can read a lot of information about doctors in USA of Indian origin here..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Association_of_Physicians_of_Indian_Origin


33 posted on 04/20/2014 4:32:15 PM PDT by entropy12
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To: entropy12
Both those doctors were imports from India. I knew one of them really well because my wife was the office manager at his practice. The other doc had his graduation certificate from an Indian university on the wall.

Wonderful imports.

I wonder what brought them here. There are NOT a lot of Hindus or Sikhs here. There really isn't a lot for them outside of India.

My husband and I got to travel to India while we were living in the middle east. We were only in India for three weeks and visited the tourist areas, but it was MOST interesting.
Not a place I would ever return to.

34 posted on 04/20/2014 4:36:18 PM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: entropy12
This is IT from the Internet.

============================================

Doctors of Indian Origin
There are currently (as of 2005) 40,838 doctors of Indian origin in the United States of America and they account for 5% of all doctors in the USA and 20% of all International Medical Graduates employed in the US workforce. It is noteworthy that India provides the largest number of International Medical Graduates to the US in absolute numbers. With 59,523 physicians of Indian origin working in the English speaking Western world (the US, UK, Australia and Canada combined), India is by far the single largest source of emigre physicians in the world.

=====================================

That's all she wrote.

One wonders why so many LEAVE their homeland.
I know that I SURE don't want to go back there and would NEVER want to live there, but India is their homeland, where their ENTIRE family, ancestry, friends and heritage are.

That is a lot to give up and doesn't speak well of India. You would think that the Indian government or board of medicine would do more to keep their native M.D. sons and daughters from abandoning India.
That IS what they are doing.

35 posted on 04/20/2014 4:44:23 PM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: cloudmountain

India graduates way too many Doctors, way too many Engineers, way too many Computer programmers, way too many college graduates of all disciplines. Indian economy can not absorb that many so many emigrate. There are more students in Indian universities than all other countries except perhaps China.

Indians have good familiarity with English language. That is why there are so many of them in UK, USA, Australia, and all former British colonies. The largest circulation of an English language newspaper in the world is Times of India.


36 posted on 04/20/2014 5:02:10 PM PDT by entropy12
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To: entropy12
India graduates way too many Doctors, way too many Engineers, way too many Computer programmers, way too many college graduates of all disciplines. Indian economy can not absorb that many so many emigrate. There are more students in Indian universities than all other countries except perhaps China.

Indians have good familiarity with English language. That is why there are so many of them in UK, USA, Australia, and all former British colonies. The largest circulation of an English language newspaper in the world is Times of India.

I DO know that when Indians go to the U.K. to practice medicine they have to return to school and take MANY, many classes, take the exams, then do internship. Their Indian training does NOT get them onto ANY medical board, faculty or staff. Their Indian training is simply NOT enough.

I had a Christian Pakistani (a rare thing indeed) friend whose sister was one of these "doctors." She immigrated to Britain and was POSITIVE that she could continue her Pakistani pediatric work, which she had done for four whole years. She wasn't even 35 years old. She was, unfortunately, looking at six MORE years of school at a British school of medicine PLUS internship and decided against it.

I remember her telling me (She had a sister here in Georgia who married a black minister and lived in Atlanta.) that she said that she had gone to university FOUR YEARS to be a pediatrician and could not, for the life of her, understand why she was denied her job as a U.K. pediatrician. She was FLOORED. She had no idea of the standards outside of India and Pakistan.

It's NO wonder that India graduates so many professionals.

Engineers here in California have to take exams too. My husband got his engineering license without even blinking an eye. He was a mechanical engineer and he could do anything. He had a pair of overalls with "HIT AND MISS ENGINEERING" inscribed on the back!

A while back, during women's lib, there was an "outcry" because there were almost no women engineers. My husband said that engineering required working with pumps, machines and engines. They had to get their hands REALLY, REALLY dirty. Even today I have yet to see a woman mechanic working on cars in any gas stations/garage/car repair place. Women, in general, didn't want to do that.

So, there came into existence NEW kinds of engineers, ones who don't get their hands dirty:

Urban engineering
Biomolecular engineering
Materials engineering
Molecular engineering
Process engineering
Environmental engineering
Geotechnical engineering
Transport engineering
Water resources engineering
Optical engineering
Power engineering
Acoustical engineering
Manufacturing engineering
Thermal engineering
Vehicle engineering
Aerospace engineering
Agricultural engineering
Applied engineering
Biological engineering
Building services engineering
Energy engineering
Industrial engineering
Mechatronics
Nanoengineering
Nuclear engineering
Petroleum engineering (oops, dirty hands here!)

================================

I would still be willing to believe that most women aren't in these fields.
Lol. Isn't the human mind wonderful, being able to INVENT so many "engineering" occupations?
"Thermal" engineering is air conditioning!!
"Urban" engineering is planning for parks and other green spaces.
They are MADE-UP "engineering" jobs which don't even require calculus.

SUCH a load.

================================

As for computer engineers, well, when I first had a problem with my computer (YEARS AGO) I called and always got an INDIAN. Useless. I got DESPERATE because they were useless. Finally I got Bob, from Nebraska. He fixed my computer from Nebraska in about 45 minutes.

I had a computer problem just the other day. I called and got an Indian and she said she would call back in 20 minutes. She never called back.
So I went to the ball game and came back. I called again, got an Indian and asked for "Bob from Nebraska" and would ONLY take someone like him.

I got Sean from Ontario, Canada. Sean was as good as Bob. Problem fixed!!

============================

Another thing Indians do is CAPITALIZE nouns when they aren't supposed to. YOU did.

Schools don't graduate Doctors and Engineers. They graduate doctors and engineers. Those are the rules of standard English. Yes, that does include American English!!

YOU are the Indian, from India. You gave it away with capitalizing the "d" in doctor and the "e" in engineering.

If one is writing to a doctor, one does write "Doctor Singha" but to an engineer, one does NOT use "engineer" as a title, because it's NOT a title.

A blessed Easter to you anyway, absolute entrophy. He has risen!

37 posted on 04/20/2014 6:04:03 PM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: cloudmountain

I did very well in an American company manufacturing cold forming machinery employing 1000 people. They promoted me to Corporate Manager of Computer aided Engineering and Manufacturing. My BS was from India and MS from a big 10 University in US. I pioneered use of computerized manufacturing processes in CNC machining and flame cutting in that outfit. Also was in charge of engineering design of all critical components. Our machines were subject to brutal impact loads because they transform a cold rolled bar of steel into a semi finished automobile part such as real axle or steering links etc. Your husband might appreciate a 500 horse motor machine performing 8-10 strokes a minute continuously.

Then Argonne Labs hired me in their Engineering Division because of my knowledge of computer aided engineering. We designed particle accelerators and any other equipment the thousands of scientists needed for their experiments. Argonne evolved from the original lab where Dr Fermi achieved the first sustained nuclear chain reaction in the world. One of my duties at Argonne was to implement and maintain 75 personal computers using Autocad software.

Now retired, when I have a computer problem at home, I never have to call service center in India. I did that for a living at Argonne.

By the way you can always capitalize any noun to emphasize it’s impact. But I can claim no expertise in grammar. That is not my field.


38 posted on 04/20/2014 6:45:13 PM PDT by entropy12
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To: entropy12
I did very well in an American company manufacturing cold forming machinery employing 1000 people. They promoted me to Corporate Manager of Computer aided Engineering and Manufacturing. My BS was from India and MS from a big 10 University in US. I pioneered use of computerized manufacturing processes in CNC machining and flame cutting in that outfit. Also was in charge of engineering design of all critical components. Our machines were subject to brutal impact loads because they transform a cold rolled bar of steel into a semi finished automobile part such as real axle or steering links etc. Your husband might appreciate a 500 horse motor machine performing 8-10 strokes a minute continuously.

Good job done.

Husband passed four years ago but thanks for the thought.

39 posted on 04/21/2014 6:11:40 AM PDT by cloudmountain
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To: entropy12
Now retired, when I have a computer problem at home, I never have to call service center in India. I did that for a living at Argonne.

Isn't retirement WONderful? I think it is.

===============================

By the way you can always capitalize any noun to emphasize it’s impact. But I can claim no expertise in grammar. That is not my field.

No, you can't. At least, not in standard English. You may italicize, bold or CAPITALIZE all the letters but capitalizing the first letter makes the noun a proper noun, like a name. You are wrong if you believe that this is a rule of standard English (English speaking countries) but I know the Indian English MAYBE does things differently.

I always had to chuckle that India uses so much English because so many individual states think that their own language from their own state is THE language to use. So India uses English for general use. Interesting compromise to the problem. It was the language of their conqueror, at least for part of India.

Namaste.

40 posted on 04/21/2014 6:23:10 AM PDT by cloudmountain
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