Posted on 07/21/2007 5:19:42 AM PDT by JohnA
Brace yourself, Canada. It's almost time for our cameo appearance in the U.S. presidential campaign.
Look closely and any day now you may see a CNN satellite truck pulling up to the door of a large Toronto hospital, all ready to tell voters back home about the great Canadian medicare experiment. It likely won't be the only U.S. media outlet to make the trek north.
Iraq is still the big campaign issue at the moment. But health care is gaining ground and if journalistic history is any guide, Canada won't escape the spotlight.
One report will almost surely document the many, so-called victims of long waits for emergency operations. Another will cite statistics showing that Canadians are healthier and live longer than Americans, thanks to Canada's all-embracing system.
A third may well document the number of Canadian doctors leaving the country to practise in the States; or perhaps the numbers of American doctors escaping the onerous supervision of the dreaded HMOs (Health Maintenance Organizations) for the creature comforts of Montreal.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
A lot of US doctors leaving for Canada? Somehow I don’t believe that.
I would expect Canada and the UK to be a refuge for the incompetent ones.
” would expect Canada and the UK to be a refuge for the incompetent ones.”
Yeah, like they can’t even build bombs well....!
We live longer. Good luck.
Dispute Flares in Florida Over Licensing of Cuban Doctors (excerpt)By PETER T. KILBORN May 14, 2000
A decade-long dispute over the licensing of a group of Cubans who want to practice medicine here is testing the power of the Cuban-American lobby in Florida against that of the state's medical establishment and is about to involve the American Medical Association.
The outcome will affect the futures of Cuban refugees who have been struggling for the right to be licensed as doctors in the United States. Also at stake, representatives of the medical establishment say, are standards of care for the profession.
The majority of the 400 would-be doctors are Cuban immigrants who came to Florida in the 1980's, a time of heavy migration from Cuba. Nicaraguans make up about a third of the group. While contending that they had medical training or had been licensed in their homeland, they have been unable to produce sufficient evidence to obtain licenses here or to pass a national exam required for all doctors by all states.
To accommodate them, the Florida Legislature, at the urging of the Cuban-American Caucus, has established a separate test for this group, in the hopes of making it easier to pass. It has placed less emphasis on pure science and more on treatment and diagnosis, for example, and made special courses available to help these immigrants prepare for the test.
The Legislature has also eliminated internships and hospital residency as preconditions for licensing for this group. The test was actually revised twice. After more than 90 percent of the immigrant doctors failed the modified exam when they first took it last May, the state rewrote it again and translated it into Spanish. Again, more than 90 percent failed the easier version when they took it in November. With still further revisions, the exam will be offered yet again late this month.
Meanwhile, the Cuban-American doctors' lobby says it will press the Legislature to eliminate licensing exams entirely for the group and to require instead that the doctors work under the close supervision of licensed physicians before setting off on their own.
Migrant MDs of two countries fail specially created state exam
By Lesley Clark
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y00/jul00/18e5.htm (accessed 7-21-07)TALLAHASSEE -- For the third time, nearly everyone taking a stab at a controversial physician's licensing exam especially set up for Cuba- and Nicaragua-trained doctors has flunked the test.
The poor results are certain to add fuel to a fire raging over the Florida Medical Licensing Exam -- the only one of its kind in the United States. The test is available only to a special group of doctors trained in Cuba or Nicaragua. Every other physician in Florida takes a national licensing exam.
The Florida Medical Association (FMA), with the help of the powerful American Medical Association, is vowing to push legislation next spring to abolish the test. And the beneficiaries of the exam -- a group of nearly 400 Cuban and Nicaraguan doctors -- are considering suing the state because they say the test is nearly impossible to pass.
``All they're looking for is a fair examination that truly does test their ability to practice medicine,'' said Frank Cuneo, a Coral Gables attorney who represents the Florida International Medical Association. ``No one is seeking to obtain a free license here.''
According to the state Department of Health, of the 153 people who took both sections of the two-part test, administered in May at the James L. Knight Center in Miami, only three passed. Of the 174 people taking just the first part, which tests knowledge of science and diseases, 16 passed. Four of the 162 people who took just the second part, which measures clinical skills, passed. Candidates must pass both exams to be eligible for a conditional medical license, allowing them to practice in Florida -- the first two years under the supervision of another licensed physician.
At the behest of Miami-Dade County's Cuban-American lawmakers, the state four years ago created the special licensing category to help nearly 400 foreign-trained doctors who lawmakers said fled communist countries and do not have the paperwork they need to sit for the national exam. Unlike any other state, Florida allows members of the group to become licensed, without completing an internship or hospital residency, by taking the test, developed by the University of South Florida at the request of the state Legislature. Other doctors must pass a three-part, English-only licensing exam, the United States Medical Licensing Examination, and complete a training program.
PREVIOUS FAILURES
The first test was given in May 1999. Of the 286 people who took both tests, nine passed. In November 1999, 69 people took both parts of the test, and three passed. Those who pass one part but fail the other can take just the part they failed at a future date.
Although the test has been twice revised and translated into Spanish for those who choose to take it in their native language, the failure rate is still 95 percent. Cuneo said that's because the state insists on setting the minimum passing score at 70 percent.
He said the national exam passing score has fluctuated between 55 and 65 percent.
``It's one of the issues that needs to be addressed,'' Cuneo said.
Another group will take the test in September. The Legislature earmarked $90,000 to pay several licensed doctors to sit for the test to compare their scores with those of the immigrant physicians. The department is recruiting up to 100 doctors and medical school residents who will be paid $600 to take both tests, said David Paulson, manager of the department's testing services.
EFFECT ON PASSAGE
If the doctors perform as badly as the foreign-trained doctors, the result could be that the passing score is lowered, Paulson said.
But Cuneo said the department should compare the scores of the foreign-trained physicians with doctors who have been out of medical school for several years, not with residents.
``On average, this group has been out of school for 10 to 15 years, practicing in different countries, and they agreed to test the exam against a group similar to that,'' Cuneo said. ``Now it appears they're looking at people straight out of medical school.''
The FMA has voted to pursue legislation to end the special exam, but it will end anyhow, Paulson said. Under state law, he said, candidates have two more chances. The exam is to be administered just twice more -- in September and again in May 2001.
``Giving it two more times is contrary to the representation made to us,'' said Cuneo, who said the department told him it would give the test five more times beyond May 2001.
Copyright 2000 Miami Herald
In the summer of 2005, as I was driving through New Brunswick, the local radio stations were announcing that the hospital emergency room had been closed due to a lack of doctors and that patients needing emergency services should see their family doctor. Giving birth? See your family doctor. Crushed in an auto wreck? See your family doctor. Etc.
With reports like yours, it’s a wonder we live longer. We should all be suffering and begging for help, but we’re not....and we wouldn’t give up on our health care system for and price. We’d reform it, sure, but we’d never, ever, give up on it.
We need to build more medical schools so we can stop importing third world docs and reserve these good jobs for Americans.
America is just across the river after all.
So your little socialist experiment in 'free' medical care has a nice little safety valve already built in.
Do bring cash, though. We've got enough of our own mooches here thanks very much.
L
I hope they HAVE a family doctor. My mother lives in Ontario. Her and 22,000 others in her area don’t have a family doctor. There are simply none available. All the doctors have moved to the US or have become specialist.
Canada has the worst Patient/Doctor ratio of any major industrial nation.
U.S. medical schools are rapidly expanding enrollments to deal with increasing demand expected with retired baby boomers.
Henry Champ would say, and the numbers would most likely bear him out on this, that you and your buddies at your most popular (NOT) HMO outfits would like to exaggerate the numbers for effect and to turf-protect.
I imagine that like our education systems (which Americans come here to study), we manage to do more with less.
Indeed, with 44m people sans any health care program it is, yes.
So post some, with sources cited if you please.
TIA.
By the way, exactly how many MRI machines are there in Canada?
L
Make it fair across the board and plenty more US citizens will bother to go through the pain to become doctors and then pay for the exorbitant tuition.
You don’t get it. Nobody has to prove anything to Canadians, who are hugely politically motivated to keep the system and to reform and improve it. The same cannot be said of the US if the movie and the political rumblings are any indication.
“Your Doctor is Not In” by Dr. Jane M. Orient
and, especially
“Lives at Risk” by John C. Goodman, Gerald L. Musgrave, and Devon M. Herrick.
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