Medical University of the Americas-Michigan , Oregon

I sent this e-mail to MUA -who advertise heavily in Nursing magazines in Massachusetts:
Dear Registrar:
Thank you for the newsletter sent to me. I find your university
interesting.
One thing that concerns me is that your degrees are considered illegal
in
MI. and Oregon. Oregon has designated your distance education programs
as a
Diploma mill.
http://www.osac.state.or.us/oda/unaccredited.html
www.michigan.gov/documents/Non-accreditedSchools_78090_7.pdf
Do you have any plans to appeal this? For 250 dollars it appears it
would be
worth this small fee to come off this list. Some universities have
appealed
and have been removed -giving their programs credability. Consider it.
Siincerely,
MIke LaFerney
I received this response.
Dear Mike,

I hope you had a nice Holiday. I find your questions to be intelligent
and on track. We, the University are actually in contact with these
states. We have started the process of having these states retract their
comments about our University. It is ironic that the state of Michigan
put us on this list when in fact we have graduates doing residencies in
some of their most prestigious hospitals. They obviously have not done
their research. We have forwarded to them our pertinent information
regarding our University. The states did admit that they have no
tangible information regarding our University and that they have
included us with some less credible programs without doing any research.
Please feel free to contact me if you have any further questions. We
hope to have our name off of these lists very shortly.

Sincerely,

Dr. Nekic
Dean
Medical University of the Americas


It'll be interesting to see what happens-I did see that Oregon doesn't state it is a diploma mill as in the past.

 

Hmmmmm... this is interesting. So do they claim to be a medical college teaching everything through distance ed?

 

MUA (Medical Program)

I was looking at this program as well. I was reading some conflicting information, such as not being able to take the licensure exam in certain states. Also, I found it hard to believe that one does not have to take the MCAT prior to admission. The program sounds great and being in the islands would be an ideal place for me to learn.

I am still doing some researching...

Good luck to you!

 

The medical school( M.D ) program is all residential. The programs offered by Distance Study are:
Ph.D in Health Sciences (requires some residential time, but can be waived)
Masters degree in Nursing -M.S.N -totally by distance study
Bachelors's degree in Nursing-totally by distance Study
Bachelor in Science
Associate of Science in Allied Health.
The nursing programs are advertised with:
Credit for work/life academic experience
No additional classroom courses
No additional clinicals and reasonable tuition
The MSN requires a nursing portfolio, paper and a short course.
Essentially a research degree.
If they were truly taken off the Oregon and Michigan lists these programs would attractive to RNS given the short time that they can be completed and low costs.3600 for BSN, 3900 for MSN and 4500 for the PH.D. But that's a big IF....

Medical University of the Americas is listed by the World Health Organization, (Seventh Edition).
Medical University of the Americas was approved and chartered by the Government of St. Christopher-Nevis in 1998.
Medical University of the Americas is approved by the E.C.F.M.G. board in the United States for students to sit for the U.S.M.L.E. board examinations.

Also would credentialing services recognize these degrees as equivalent to a U.S degree given the school is located in the Carribean but offered through it's "Continuing education" division in Gardner, MA? The AANC would not allow these nurses to be certified in the many specialties offered if the WES didn't see them as equivalent

 

You can read alot at www.valuemd.com

MUA is not a distance medical degree program. But it doesn't have any licensed grads yet either I think.

A bunch of these schools are offering joint MD/MBA or MHA programs. The reason why is this: it is tough to get financial loans for offshore medical schools but you can get a stafford,etc. from attending graduate school. So they do joint ventures with US programs. This may end up being a major problem for some of these people in the future when they try to claim the degrees and it is found that their 'graduate' degree is a diploma mill one.

Dean Hughson
www.internetmedicalschool.homestead.com

 

Amedd Program

I agree MUA (MD/Ph.D) is not a DL program. As a matter of fact, their curriculum seems quite organized. The only concern I have so far is that certain states do not grant licensures if one attended MUA.

I went to the forum on valuemd.com and found some conflicting information. It's hard for me to decipher at this time.

I am considering going back in the Army (AMEDD Program) and trying to find a program that will simply let me in with a MCAT scores. Most schools I have researched so far requires that an applicant has to have 1 year of inorganic & organic chemistry, 1 year biology and 1 year physics. That would mean I won't likely start med school until next year

If anyone knows of a medical program that would take one with only MCAT, Biology courses, 1 chemistry, Anatomy & Physiology, please let me know. Also, I have a M.S. in Counseling Pscyhology. I am considering options in Psychiatry or even a Nurse Practitioner.

Thanks.

 

Yes MUA is a residential medical school so none of this program is applicable to Distance Education. Programs applicable to this discussion board are it's Ph.D in Health Sciences and its nursing programs which are administered from Gardner, MA. For info on these programs go to:
http://mua.edu/odprg.php

 

I can see NO other reason they are offering these PHD's and Master degree 'distance education' programs to their students other than to make them eligible for 'Staffords" and other types of financing. Surely US universities and hospitals will see through the diploma mill PHD/MS programs but one never knows.

 

Here's a Belize newspaper story, dated August 16, 2001, announcing plans to open a medical school in Belize.

http://www.sanpedrosun.net/old/01-322.html

And here's a Belize newspaper story dated November 29, 2001, announcing the opening of the medical school.

http://www.sanpedrosun.net/old/01-471.html

Is it really possible to create a credible medical school in three months? The medical schools that I am familiar with, UCSF and Stanford, are major institutions.

A corner of MUA-Belize's small building is shown in a photo in the second article. Here's how the facility is described:

Medical University of the Americas - Belize will transform the basement of the former convention center into the school's laboratory. The first floor will be utilized for three lecture halls. The second floor will be used as a library and as administrative offices for his staff.

Here's the faculty described:

Joining President Jeffrey Sersland are his wife Renae Sersland, Dr. Mary Beth Downs; Anatomist, Dr. Armando Rosales; Pathologist, Dr. Abdul Shamsuddin and his wife Sahara, a histologist; Terry Anderson as University Coordinator and Liz Cechini as Chief Financial Officer. Gary Pletcher is named as the Provost and Dr. David Fredrick the Chancellor for the university. Additional professors from Glasgow, Scotland and the United Kingdom are scheduled to come aboard in the near future.

Here's a description of the student body:

MUAB will operate on a trimester system admitting students three times a year in January, May and September. Dr. Sersland stated that besides the 30 students already enrolled in the two-year basic science program, the school has 60 clinical students doing rotations in hospitals abroad and 150 applicants for the May semester. He anticipates 150 additional students to join MUAB by September, 2002. Overall, the total number of students enrolled in the consortium of MUA schools is over 1000.

Warnborough University offers a pre-med program recognized by both MUA and SABA Medical School.

http://www.warnborough.edu/premed/premed.htm

It looks like David Frederick is becoming a major figure in the world of off-shore Caribbean medical schools. The first story tells us:

Dr. David Fredrick, founder of SABA Medical School and Medical School of the Americas (St. Christopher-Nevis), is pleased to join Dr. Jeffrey Sersland, founder of St. Matthew's University (San Pedro, Belize) in co-founding a Medical University of the America's branch campus in Belize...

This newly formed consortium involving the sister campus SABA and the Medical University of the Americas will be the first-ever amongst the offshore medical schools.

Two men who, between them, have founded three universities. Amazing. It makes me wonder why it takes so much time and effort to create the new University of California, Merced.

MUA in Nevis does seem to have had some success placing students for residencies in the United States. I personally find that kind of worrisome.

 

MUA does claim that their BSN program is acceptable for School nurse certification in MA. (School nurses here must have A BSN)
and it is advertised in most relevent nursing publications -including the publication of the Massachusetts Nurses Association.
Most students wouldn't need loans given the low costs of these programs-can complete a Phd for the less than one years tuition or fees at a Massachsuetts state University or College.
I'd be interseted in knowing if anyone has had their degrees evaluated by a reputable foreign degree credentialing service as the WES (A NACES member) -If they were found to be equivalent then they would be a good value in most states (other than MI. or Oregon)

 

Not Distance Ed

The Medical University of the Americas in Belize is an Independent campus from the Nevis campus. We do not currently have a Nursing program. All of our programs are offered completely in residence. We do not offer any distance education programs. You may go to our website for more detailed information; www.mua.edu.bz about the programs that we do offer.

We have moved into our new campus facilities in January 2004. Pictures of our new campus, current students, and faculty can be viewed on the www.valuemd.com website in the Album section.

If you have any specific questions about our program, please feel free to contact me at my email [email protected] or [email protected].