Medical University of the Americas

I guarantee you that more people have heard of UMass-Lowell than the MUA. BTW...what are your academic qualifications?

In any case, if you want to go to a physician that went to an off-shore medical school, be my guest. Just don't expect to run into me & my family in the waiting room.

 

You would be surprised at how many American born doctors were educated outside of the US because they couldn't get in here for one reason or another. One of the biggest horse's rear ends I work with was educated somewhere south of the US border. I don't know how you'd know unless you got into his office to see his degree or asked him, which people as a rule just don't do. You'd never know from his skills or his attitude, which is decidedly self-centered and obnoxious (and American).

Some of the finest doctors I work with are foreign born and educated doctors and are exceptional at their practice. Medical school is just the bones of the doctor's education, the flesh and blood are made in residency, many years of it. That is where the doctors flourish or fail, american or foreign.

I have no dog in this fight but I know of where I speak working in a mid-sized university research hospital. The foreign born doctors understand our english much better than we manage to understand them.

While you are concerned with foreign doctors, you should also be concerned with foreign born and educated nurses. You will see more and more of them as the nursing population continues to skrink beyond the needs of the populace due to low pay and too many patients. They are quitting in huge numbers. Fifty-two Phillipino nurses were just hired and flown into our city for one hospital here in town. They are the ones administering your meds and watching you during your hospital stay, trying to read the american taught american doctor's deplorable handwriting and trying to figure out the slang. That is just as scary, more so, than the issue of the doctor's from outside the US, especially since the Phillipines is more than 10+ years behind in current practice from the US. But that's okay, they're only nurses, right? I'd rather have a doctor trained outside the US but in residency here for the last 4 years treating me than a nurse who has been here one month taking care of me or my family.

Just some food for these medical thoughts.

 

For the most part, the reason they don't get in is because their undergraduate grades were not good enough. You get one "B" in a course like Organic Chemistry and you've just crossed your own name off half the schools in this country. Get another "B" and your next stop is the passport photo shop because the only med school you're going to is "offshore." Unbelievable pressure.
Jack

 

Oh, I agree with you. It is a real shame that a bad case of the flu during undergrad could knock an otherwise excellent pre-med student out of the ballpark because of a garnered B taken during a test where he/she was too ill to hold their head up. Then there's the straight A med students that don't have the brains, comon sense or grace God gave a duck, nor do they have the ability to gain a bedside manner no matter how bright they are or how many years of training they have or how great their grades are. It's just like everything else.

Do you know the difference between God and a doctor?

God doesn't think he's a doctor.

 

The Fact that MUA is listed on the Oregon's unaccredited degrees website doesn't bode well for their nursing programs. I have learned that their degrees are not well received by the ANCC for Certification. They would need to be evaluated by a reputable Degree evaluating service as a foreign degree.
MUA states that their BSN graduates have been eligible for school nurse certification in Massachusetts, and a BSN graduate was admitted to Mass General's Graduate program in Nursing.
I would wonder why if the Medical University of the Americas was approved and chartered by the Government of St. Christopher-Nevis in 1988 these degrees are not considered as GAAP in Oregon. Anybody know?
ANCC= (American Nurses credentialing Center)

 

Where I work it's referred to as MDeity.

Jack

 

I simply go here and look them up.

 

American trained doctor example

My son was born in an Air Force hospital. It was a difficult birth and my wife was attended by no less than a half dozen experts trying to speed the birth along. All of them were native born and trained medical personnel. I was gratified I was in a military hospital because if it had been out on my civilian insurance each of those experts would have cost me a ton of money. The attending doctor, the one making the decisions, wanted to do a caesarean (spelling, I'm not a doctor). The nurse midwife kept advocating an appeseatomy (I know I butchered that word!). I heard the doctor (obstetrition?) say, "those are so old fashioned!". I was amazed! They left the decision up to my wife, who was in pain, drugged up and just wanted to get done. She asked which one would stop the pain and the doctor told her the caesarean. She opted for that. I was furious, as both of my daughters from my previous wife were born using the appeseatomy and I saw nothing "old fashioned" about it! It, to me, was safer as no one had to be put to sleep, or receive a transfusion to get it done. I was told to leave the room and that changed my wife's mind because no matter what she didn't want me out of the room. The appeseatomy was done and just like that out he came. Today, I have three great kids all born the "old fashioned way".

Was the young man a bad doctor? Heck no, I have always found excellant doctors in military hospitals and he will I am sure mature into a very fine surgeon. However, the American trend towards "new and improved" can sometimes get in the way of the "tried and true". In fact, the SIU School of Medicine, one of the finest schools in the country for training GP's, has a new program emphasizing the practical hands on approach to diagnosing patients in reponse to a common perception American medical schools have gone too far in stressing technology.

 

Not that this discussion should waddle toward doctors vs. nurses Chris, but in your story the nurse's appraisal was the "patient" centered training nurses receive vs the doctor's "procedure" based training. Glad it worked out for you. It just points out the core difference in nursing trainng vs doctor training.

I would not look to offshore higher degrees in nursing, there are too many nursing programs in the US that are appropriately evaluated, accepted, and supported by the NLN, etc. Why risk acceptance by taking a program outside the US when so many are right here.

 

An earlier comment in this thread criticized the fact that one MUA professor was trained as a dentist ("tooth puller"), and another as a veterinarian ("doggie doctor"). He did not note, however, that both of these professors also had Ph.D. degrees- the dentist in anatomy (University of Arizona) and the veterinarian in tropical parasitology (University of Edinburgh). Not all medical schools have dentists or veterinarians on the faculty, but it is very common for basic sciences faculty to have a Ph.D. rather than a M.D. You will find such non-M.D. faculty teaching basic science courses at most U.S. medical schools.

It appears to me that the faculty at MUA generally hold very well respected degrees:

http://www.mua.edu/facul.php

They probably don't have nearly as many publications as the faculty at most U.S. medicaL schools, but MUA is not a research institution.

Off-shore medical schools provide an opportunity for many people who become excellent physicians. Many well-qualified students are turned away from Amercan medical schools because their GPA is slightly too low, or because they are older than the traditional age for medical school. Remember- before foreign medical graduates can practice in the U.S., they have to pass a very rigorous exam.

We are fortunate in many parts of the U.S. to have a variety of physicians available to us. Anyone is perfectly within their rights to choose their physicians on whatever criteria they like (medical school attended, sex, ethnicity, years of experience, reputation, board certification, languages spoken, which insurance programs are accepted, etc). Which medical school the doctor attended would not be at the top of my list.

Alex

 

So you cant determine someone's communication skills without looking at his (medical!) diploma? Riiiight. And what are those "other" reasons?

Let's not forget that physician in question passed her USMLE (2 - or is it 3? - 2-day, all-day exams, in English in all subjects relevant to med school education), passed licensing board and spent 4 years in residence, in US, under tight supervision of US doctors. You don't beleive the process if it don't confirm your superstition?

Your right. But don't fool yourself or the others into thinking your choice was rational. You rejected a professional basing on what amounts to her nationality. Yeah right, that's what made America great!

 

It was perfectly rational for me, and that's all that matters.

I'm not really sure why you care what my criteria are in selecting a physician. I couldn't possibly care any less what your criteria consists of, or what you think of mine.

 

Oh, but you did use your choice as an argument on this forum. As I understand, this gives me (or anyone else) a perfect right to criticize it. Don't make it personal where it isn't.

 

I wasn't making an argument, merely expressing my opinion. If I had stated that no one should select a physician that wasn't educated in the US, that would have been an argument. I didn't do that.

All I did was express my opinion regarding me and my family. That's as personal as it gets.

 

And my intent was to show that your opinion does not add anything relevant to the discussion. I may agree that my tone was not right, and I apologise.

On surface, MUA looks like a legitimate organisation. Of course, it may be and most probably is substandard by AMA criteria and does not measure up to a US school (or else why would they bother to open it in Nevis for the first place). Some portion of it's graduates may or may not be unfit to practise (but so are some US graduates), but I bet 99,99% of them will never be licensed in US. Those more serious students will get their license and will practice just fine.

I admit this is funny to see the "biggest U. S. ally in Eastern Europe", new member of EU to be lumped with Nevis. But I must note it is greatly unfair.