# Would this worry you or am I a horrible person? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 20, 2009, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336 "2009-11-20T21:20:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Pulp\_Friction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/2acd7d/32.png) [@Pulp\_Friction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pulp_Friction)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/21 "2009-11-23T01:48:15Z")
It’s not the school that makes a good doctor. That has very little to do with it. ---
**Author:** ![Gestalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/90ced4/32.png) [@Gestalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gestalt)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/22 "2009-11-23T01:53:10Z")
> [@ratatoskK](#): > > Where can I find such a list? [http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/primary-care-rankings/page+3](http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-medical-schools/primary-care-rankings/page+3) This is the list of schools that are ranked for “primary care” ---
**Author:** ![usedtobe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@usedtobe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/usedtobe)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/23 "2009-11-23T07:09:29Z")
I’d be looking for an insuurance company which pays well enough tp attract doctors with whom you are comfortable. And no, a banana republic’s idea of medical doctor probably isn’t mine. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 9:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/24 "2009-11-23T09:19:48Z")
> [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](#): > > I’m sure she was very, very smart, and very, very well educated. She was young, though, and was a bit hesitant. I happen to know she was at the top of HER class. But to me she seemed cold, and I could only understand about one word of every three she said–and she didn’t talk a lot. The two men were very easygoing and joked around, but they were confident. I had the sense they knew what they were doing. I didn’t get that from her. That seems to be quite common (but please, nowhere near 100%!) for female students at the top of the class: they’re there, not because they’re better memorizers or problem-solvers than others, but because they’re so convinced that they don’t know anything that they go on cramming when everybody else has stopped. I don’t think that “discriminating doctors by reason of national origin” makes the OP a horrible person, merely uninformed and stupid, but I wonder: would you do the same if you had to select employees? If you were handed employees who were foreign nationals? Because I did have a boss who got myself and several others fired because he didn’t like foreigners and lemme tell you, “horrible person” doesn’t begin to describe my opinion of that censoredcensoredcensoredBEEEEP! ---
**Author:** ![MandaJo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac91a4/32.png) [@MandaJo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MandaJo)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/25 "2009-11-23T13:42:27Z")
US Medical schools are so competitive these days that I don’t think you can begin to hold it against someone that they couldn’t get into an American school: my impression is that if you don’t have a 3.5 in your “med school transcript” (basically your hard sciences, with no padding), you’re out of luck–and even then you are no shoe-in. There are a lot of very good doctors in their 50s that couldn’t have even gotten into medical school if they were applying today. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/26 "2009-11-23T18:15:15Z")
> [@Nava](#): > > I don’t think that “discriminating doctors by reason of national origin” makes the OP a horrible person, merely uninformed and stupid, but I wonder: would you do the same if you had to select employees? If you were handed employees who were foreign nationals? Because I did have a boss who got myself and several others fired because he didn’t like foreigners and lemme tell you, “horrible person” doesn’t begin to describe my opinion of that censoredcensoredcensoredBEEEEP! > [@](#): > > From the OP: > If this were my plumber, landlord, childcare provider, accountant, or any other service provider it wouldn’t bother me at all. I really think that throwing around insults is unwarranted here, Nava. I specifically posted, “If they were listed as going to universities in Toronto, London, Prague, Hong Kong, or any number of other cities or countries I wouldn’t have blinked but doctors being educated in places that are known for corruption or being unable to provide clean drinking water to their citizens don’t really inspire me to trust that they are turning out competent doctors.” which I think is a pretty good indication that it isn’t about race or national origin. Don’t take your frustration with your former employer out on me because I don’t think that someone who was raised in a society where they practice witchcraft as medicine would make as good a doctor as someone who wasn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/27 "2009-11-23T18:48:46Z")
> [@cerberus](#): > > passing the USMLE and completing US residencies and fellowships ensures a proficient physician. Oh, I wish that were true. I’ve worked with many MDs who completed US med school & residencies and passed their boards, only to discover that their personal practice standards weren’t so hot. Still, if they’re boarded in a recognized primary care specialty in the US (like Family Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, OB/Gyn), the odds of having a competent one are better than if they’re not boarded. ---
**Author:** ![trupa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aeb1de/32.png) [@trupa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trupa)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/28 "2009-11-23T19:21:55Z")
My wife is an Oncologist who is involved in a program to train / evaluate Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs) for inclusion into the Canadian medical system. These are the observations she has made privately to me. She has found that, _generally_, graduates of medical schools from countries in the British commonwealth, with the exception of the Caribbean ones, are clinically as good as those from first world countries. Those from India, in particular, are often better clinical diagnosticians than North-American graduates, due to the lower availability of sophisticated imaging and diagnostic tests. Instead of ordering a battery of tests, they will make a fairly solid diagnostic, and confirm with one test. She has had very mixed results with very few candidates from from Central and South America. Non commonwealth middle-eastern countries tended to the less than satisfactory, we speculate due to a higher nepotism rate for admission, and the south east Asia countries were also not great, but with very few candidates from the region. If you were to ask her this in person, she would likely decline to answer forthrightly unless she knew you really well. I am also posting this under cover of the relative anonymity of these boards. She would probably be a little miffed at me for doing it, but I’m trying to help the OP. This post falls under the usual disclaimers about free advice from the Internet. YMMV and all that. ---
**Author:** ![Gestalt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/90ced4/32.png) [@Gestalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gestalt)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/29 "2009-11-23T21:29:23Z")
Oh, and one other note I just thought of . . . because American medical graduates are choosing more and more to specialize and not do primary care, there is a large dearth of American primary care doctors. These gaps in service are being filled by doctors from abroad. I’m speculating that these doctors primarily come from developing countries, because people from more developed countries would be less likely to want to immigrate to the states. So sometimes you may be seriously limiting your options for primary care if you’ll only go to a doctor from a “first-world” country. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2009, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/30 "2009-11-23T23:27:48Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > So am I worried about nothing when I see a doctor who graduated from medical school in Paraguay or is my fear justified? I’d agree with Nava… uninformed and stupid. To practice private medicine in the US, a foreign graduate has to have completed a battery of tests and board requirements. And he/she probably did a residency and may be board certified, like Qagdop said. They may not tell you where they did the residency, though, unless you ask. Look, for veterinary school, foreign students have to pass the TOEFL (English test), the NAVLE (national boards), and at least 2 other tests, including one in clinical proficiency (that students in the U.S. do not have to do) if they want to practice. Veterinary medicine does not require additional residency and board certification like human medicine to practice. And besides doing all that board certification, a doctor ALSO has to comply with the licencing requirements of the state (in your case, NY). Unless it is an extremely shady insurance company, I’m sure most of them would make sure the doctors they cover meet the standards of practice for the U.S. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/31 "2009-11-24T00:06:59Z")
> [@Gestalt](#): > > Oh, and one other note I just thought of . . . because American medical graduates are choosing more and more to specialize and not do primary care, there is a large dearth of American primary care doctors. These gaps in service are being filled by doctors from abroad. I’m speculating that these doctors primarily come from developing countries, because people from more developed countries would be less likely to want to immigrate to the states. So sometimes you may be seriously limiting your options for primary care if you’ll only go to a doctor from a “first-world” country. This actually makes a lot of sense. I will keep this in mind when looking at doctors. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/32 "2009-11-24T00:33:20Z")
> [@KarlGrenze](#): > > To practice private medicine in the US, a foreign graduate has to have completed a battery of tests and board requirements. And he/she probably did a residency and may be board certified, like Qagdop said. They may not tell you where they did the residency, though, unless you ask. Although I understand the OP’s concern, I think this is accurate. My cousin went to medical school in Mexico (he’s a US/Mexico dual citizen) and later moved to the US, where he went through the process of becoming board certified. It was a VERY intense, time-consuming process. He didn’t just show someone his Mexican MD and get a job, he really had to prove he knew his shit before they would let him practice medicine here. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/33 "2009-11-24T06:01:14Z")
> [@trupa](#): > > My wife is an Oncologist who is involved in a program to train / evaluate Foreign Medical Graduates (FMGs) for inclusion into the Canadian medical system. These are the observations she has made privately to me. > > She has found that, _generally_, graduates of medical schools from countries in the British commonwealth, with the exception of the Caribbean ones, are clinically as good as those from first world countries. Those from India, in particular, are often better clinical diagnosticians than North-American graduates, due to the lower availability of sophisticated imaging and diagnostic tests. Instead of ordering a battery of tests, they will make a fairly solid diagnostic, and confirm with one test. She has had very mixed results with very few candidates from from Central and South America. Non commonwealth middle-eastern countries tended to the less than satisfactory, we speculate due to a higher nepotism rate for admission, and the south east Asia countries were also not great, but with very few candidates from the region. Nitpick: there aren’t any Commonwealth countries in the Middle East, unless you count Pakistan, which is a bit of a stretch. **pbbth** , are you lumping all foreign med school graduates together, or just the ones who graduated from places where second-tier American med students might go? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/34 "2009-11-24T06:06:45Z")
> [@pbbth](#): > > I really think that throwing around insults is unwarranted here, Nava. I specifically posted, “If they were listed as going to universities in Toronto, London, Prague, Hong Kong, or any number of other cities or countries I wouldn’t have blinked but doctors being educated in places that are known for corruption or being unable to provide clean drinking water to their citizens don’t really inspire me to trust that they are turning out competent doctors.” which I think is a pretty good indication that it isn’t about race or national origin. Don’t take your frustration with your former employer out on me because I don’t think that someone who was raised in a society where they practice witchcraft as medicine would make as good a doctor as someone who wasn’t. Paraguay? FYI, there are people in the US who “practice witchcraft as medicine.” And the doctors in Paraguay or Mexico are not taught “witchcraft.” The lack of means of some of the countries you cited doesn’t mean that their doctors don’t know the difference between penicilline and a prayer. As a matter of fact, few countries have less means than Cuba - and that is one of the reasons Cuban doctors are superb at emergencies: they’re used to pulling miracles out of thin air because thin air is too often the only thing they have. ---
**Author:** ![KarlGrenze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/dbc845/32.png) [@KarlGrenze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGrenze)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/35 "2009-11-24T11:07:36Z")
Ouch… Thanks **Nava** , I had not noticed that part until now. Bucharest? Paragüay? Guatemala? Practice witchcraft as a medicine? Not in med school, sorry. I second Nava’s comment. And you’re all talking about how American students are the best at American universities. In many of those countries, _their med students are also among their best_. Again, lack of means does not mean ignorance. Thinking that someone who graduated from med school abroad and was obviously good enough to have passed all the requirements to practice in the U.S. practices “witchcraft” is ignorant (and stupid). Thinking that any place capable of sending doctors to the U.S. (who become accredited) is also capable of teaching “witchcraft” in medical school is also ignorant (and stupid). Note: I am, of course, strongly biased in this discussion. ---
**Author:** ![pbbth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f9ae1b/32.png) [@pbbth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pbbth)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/36 "2009-11-24T14:58:22Z")
The witchcraft comment was meant as hyperbole. I am fully aware those countries don’t practice witchcraft in their medical schools. ---
**Author:** ![trupa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/aeb1de/32.png) [@trupa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trupa)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2009, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336/37 "2009-11-24T17:29:46Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Nitpick: there aren’t any Commonwealth countries in the Middle East, unless you count Pakistan, which is a bit of a stretch. Agree about the stretch re. Pakistan, but the main country she referred to was Egypt. I don’t know if Egypt is still a member of the commonwealth, or if it’s formally in the middle east instead of Africa, but it’s medical system was strongly influenced by the British, and they seem to crank out decent MDs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-this-worry-you-or-am-i-a-horrible-person/518336.md?page=1)