Posted on 03/30/2002 12:08:15 PM PST by ijcr
MIAMI (AP) - The Florida Department of Health will strip 40 immigrant physician assistants of their licenses on Sunday because they have been unable to pass the state's licensing exam.
The assistants, all Cuban and Haitian immigrants, are licensed doctors in their native countries, but are not qualified for medical licenses in the United States. They have worked alongside doctors in Miami-Dade County's poorest neighborhoods for as long as 11 years.
After several attempts, all have failed to pass the state's licensing exam for physician assistants. Some will travel to Tallahassee on Tuesday, where they hope to appeal their licenses' repeal.
They say the licensing exam is unfair and the state has treated them poorly.
Jose Lagos, executive director of the Medical Graduates Physician Assistants Association, has been battling the Florida Department of Health and state Legislature to help the medical workers stay on the job.
Lagos claims the state test is skewed against nonwhite immigrants because it ignores language and cultural barriers.
"Rather than selling hot dogs, these immigrants sought the American Dream, which is now a nightmare for them," Lagos said Friday.
"These professionals work in hospitals, clinics, community centers. They help AIDS patients and the elderly in our community. They're able to treat them in their own language."
According to Lagos, all 40 assistants took the exam twice and received failing grades before being notified their temporary licenses would be revoked.
A state statute stipulates that candidates for the physician assistant license be given three chances to pass the state test before losing their temporary license.
Lagos also claims that Florida requires a grade of at least 60 percent for candidates to receive a license, while the national certification test approved by most other states has a passing score of 50 percent.
Bill Parizek, spokesman for the Florida Department of Health, disputes Lagos' claims.
"We're following the state statute, which compels us to revoke the license of anyone who failed the test three times, and that is the case with every one of these candidates," he said.
According to Parizek, the Department of Health has administered the assistant physician licensing exam six times since 1995, with 259 people passing and receiving their licenses.
Parizek couldn't immediately provide the total number of people who have taken the test since 1995 or a percentage of those who passed.
On two of those occasions, due to court challenges, candidates who failed the test were given the choice of having their scores nullified.
Also, when claims of unfairness followed the exam's third administration, the health department removed the section of the exam dealing with clinical science.
Other concessions have been made, Parizek said. The state agreed to lower the passing score to 60 percent. It also agreed, as part of a settlement following the test's fourth administration, to offer free preparatory courses and provide course material.
But Edgar Santiago said the state never made good on this last promise.
Santiago, originally from Puerto Rico, paid $500 to take a medical science class at Nova Southeastern University in Broward County, hoping it would help him pass the test. "No course was ever offered to help prepare us," he said.
In fact, the Department of Health only explored the possibility of developing a course. When Barry and Nova universities declined the opportunity to offer the courses in a partnership with health officials, the effort was dropped.
Santiago, a 50-year-old father of three, has worked as a psychiatrist's assistant in Hialeah for 11 years.
"I work in a community of people nobody else want to see. They are poor. Many are AIDS patients or drug addicts. I'm often the only link between them and their families."
But Bernd Wollschlaeger, a doctor who is a member of the Florida Medical Association, International Medical Graduates section, dismissed the group's claims of bias.
"We simply need to abandon a separate path for this group," Wollschlaeger said. "You and I don't want to be treated by a professional who can't pass a basic qualification test in his field."
Florida's test is so watered down by the changes that it is not recognized by the National Certification Board of Physician Assistants and "brings into question the credibility" of the state's physician's assistant license.
Santiago said he and others are not looking for a free ride.
"We want to earn this license and comply with the state's standard. But we need more support, more preparation to pass this test."
Licensure is required for practice in the state of Florida. The requirements for licensure include completion of a program that is approved by the Florida Board of Medicine and national certification. Upon graduation, physician assistants take a national certification examination developed by the National Commission on Certification of Physician Assistants (NCCPA) in conjunction with the National Board of Medical Examiners. To maintain their national certification, PAs must log 100 hours of continuing medical education every two years and sit for a recertification examination every six years.
These folks are allowed 18 yrs to get certified meanwhile they can write script for heroin.
Only in the Medical profession---sheesh!
Oh, really?
That's commonly heard here too where many people who were doctors in Mexico can't pass the exam in the US. They cry it's unfair and is biased against them because it's not given in Spanish. However there are plenty of doctors from Mexico who were able to pass the tests ---as well as doctors from India, Greece and other foreign countries. These are pathetic crybabies who aren't up to the test and should not be given exemptions or easier tests like they're demanding.
http://www.nccpa.net/pages/aboutncc.htm
NCCPA’s Purpose and Mission
NCCPA is the only credentialing organization for physician assistants in the United States. Established as a not-for-profit organization in 1975, NCCPA is dedicated to assuring the public that certified physician assistants meet established standards of knowledge and clinical skills upon entry into practice and throughout their careers. Every U.S. state, the District of Columbia and the U.S. territories rely on NCCPA certification criteria for licensure or regulation of physician assistants. Approximately 43,000 physician assistants have been certified by NCCPA.
Would you want your mother or child under their care in some emergency room at 4AM? Of course this being Florida, there are plenty of corrupt Democrat vermin (a redundancy) who have a lot of money in their pockets right now from these creeps.
Lagos also claims that Florida requires a grade of at least 60 percent for candidates to receive a license, while the national certification test approved by most other states has a passing score of 50 percent.
Why it couldn’t be that Mr. Lagos is LYING could it? You know that nasty, racist government, trying to keep the dusky hued down at every turn. Best of luck to you Mr. Lagos! These tests should take into account language and cultural barriers, just like patients should. So what if you’re mis-diagnosed or mistreated if it’s in the name of diversity?
Owl _ Eagle
“Guns before butter.”
Seems to me that the test is skewed against unqualified crud who pull the race card when they can't measure up to accepted standards. Can these people be deported?
I would like to think that I had a better than a sixty percent chance of getting proper health care. Why aren't the requirements highter? I don't want inadequate medical care because some immigrant (or anyone else) has color or cultural barriers to learning the profession.
I graduated from a Cuban American Catholic high school in Miami. Out of our graduating class of 31, not a single one of us ever became a P.A.
Five of us, however, including myself, became M.D.'s.
Utter B.S. Most every Indian doctor I have encountered speaks better English than me.
I think that proves my point...
I'm sure they'll propose adding some new culturally sensitive sections, like Voodoo practices, Incantations, and clinical practice for Curandero's (complete with questions on appropriately scary headdresses).
Nobody can do that, MDs included.
Oh, you selfish, racist white man, you!
First, 90% of the world has inadequate medical care thanks to centuries of colonialism and exploitation by the white man. So what makes YOU so special?
Second, like a typically xenophobic white racist, you automatically equate "good" healthcare with white, European, rationalistic, science-based, profit-oriented medicine -- and stereotype any holistic, humanistic, nontechnical,spirtuality-based healthcare as "inadequate."
So I ask you, Dr. Polybius, what do you think of the 40 of 43,000 who cannot/will not/do not pass the NCCPA certification due to "cultural differences"? Are there similar problems with the USMLE?
#1. Eurocentric colonialism took medicine and science to parts of the world that had never seen it.
#2. Most so-called "alternative medicine" is simply a scam to put patients' money into alternative bank accounts, those of the scammers.
#3. Had you traveled the world and seen as opposed to simple accepting what your mentors indoctrinated you with, you would have desired, in fact, demanded the White Devil's Western medicine if you were ever sick in Africa or Asia. Asian and African heads of state regularly send their families to the US for medical care. When was the last time a prominant American went to Bangladesh for surjury?
#4. PS. Remind me someday to tell you about Children's Onclogy Hospital #11 in Kiev.
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