Ross medical students will spend a semester in Florida [like a Kaplan Medical Review}

Ross University becomes the first offshore medical school to move its fifth semester to the United States.

Come September, 25 second-year students enrolled at Ross University School of Medicine, Dominica, will take their fifth semester of basic science studies in Miami.

Ross officials said that if no challenges are made by the U.S. medical community -- and they believe none is justified -- Ross plans in January 2001 to phase out its final semester in Dominica and require fifth-semester students to complete basic science coursework in Miami. The move will affect about 80 students this school year.

Earlier this year, Ross dropped a controversial plan to open a two-year branch campus in Wyoming. Opponents said Ross should be barred from offering basic science courses in the United States unless it became accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the voluntary body that accredits the nation's 125 allopathic medical schools.

Ross officials say that offering basic science studies in Miami does not violate LCME rules or U.S. Dept. of Education regulations governing student loans.

The modified Ross course offered in Miami, which is titled "Introduction to Clinical Medicine," has been approved by the Dominica Medical Board, said Ross President Neil Simon in New York. Officials from the Dept. of Education were unavailable for comment.

According to several Ross students who spoke with AMNews on condition of anonymity, Ross officials told them the fifth semester will consist of a six-credit "Introduction to Clinical Medicine II" course and a nine-credit "Advanced Integrated Study Program."

However, the Ross students suspect the second part of the Miami course really is a Kaplan Medical review course for step one of the United States Medical Licensing Examination. Kaplan officials declined to comment.

"We are combining our two fifth-semester courses and incorporating the clinical with the didactic," Simon said. He denied the didactic part of the course is designed to review the USMLE step 1 test. Simon said the Miami course will be taught by 10 or 12 Kaplan instructors who also are on the Ross University faculty.

But why move the fifth semester to Miami? "Most of our students are from the U.S. and they want to come here," Simon said. "We believe there is better clinical material in the states than in Dominica. ... This is a normal part of our curriculum. We are not bringing a campus to the U.S. This is one semester."

One Ross student told AMNews, "Ross students have been scoring very well on the USMLE but were having difficulty applying their basic science knowledge to the clinical setting. ... The main focus of this program [in Miami] is to give students an intensive clinical exposure prior to their rotations."

But another Ross student said school officials told him the Miami course will include the USMLE review course. "The [Miami] program will be six weeks of preclinical training followed by seven weeks of independent study for the USMLE," the student said.

Ross also announced that Larkin Community Hospital in Miami has been added to its 40 American hospitals that serve as clinical training sites for third- and fourth-year students. About 20 Ross students will do six-week core clerkship rotations in the hospital's family practice department, said Jose David Suarez, MD, Larkin's chair of family medicine.

"We will provide certain blocks of education for them, but we haven't worked out all the details," said Dr. Suarez, who was unaware that Ross students plan to do their fifth semester in Miami.

"I am impressed with the medical students coming from Ross. I don't really notice any difference with American-trained students," he said.

However, the Ross students suspect the second part of the Miami course really is a Kaplan Medical review course for step one of the United States Medical Licensing Examination.

I wonder how it finally worked out.

As I said on an earlier post, these "medical students" are those who would not qualify for real medical schools, either because of poor undergraduate grades and/or their double-digit IQs.

Fortunately, very few will ever qualify for residency in any medical specialty and thus will never become board certified, the requirement of all real hospitals. They therefore wind up working for cheapy HMOs and are licensed in the weaker licensing states as general practicioners.

Most RNs and EMTs have better medical training.

As I said on an earlier post, these "medical students" are those who would not qualify for real medical schools, either because of poor undergraduate grades and/or their double-digit IQs.

Maybe this is why Dominica needs to have Cuba to help its medical professionals.

Cuba and the Commonwealth of Dominica have long maintained cooperation relations.
Cuba has trained 70 specialists from the small, Eastern-Caribbean Island. More than 280 others are currently studying university careers here in Cuba in different sectors and there are also Cuban doctors offering their services in health institutions in the Commonwealth of Dominica.

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