Kaboom! A $650,000/year executive in Florida

New head of a huge hospital group in Ft. Lauderdale. Kennedy-Western degree.
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/health/fl-sb-capasso-degree-20170629-story.html
The job requires an accredited Master's degree.
Colleague says that a degree is just a piece of paper, it's her skills that count.

Hey, that's $2,600 a day. $325 an hour.

 

Wow!

 

In 1994 a major employer in the state of CA paid tuition for KWU Masters degree and accepted the degree for employment etc.
My friend had BSc in Engineering from Cal State Northridge and a Masters degree from KWU in CA. I remember it having offices in Agoura Hills, CA and issuing degrees from Hawaii.
If my memory serves me well they also had an approved business school in the state of CA?
I can be wrong about Business degrees issued in CA.

 

From 1984 to 1991 KWU was licensed in the state of CA by the Ca Bureau for Private Postsecondary and Vocational Education.
They moved their mail processing office to Idaho in 1990 after the CA Postsecondary and Vocational Education reform act while keeping the administrative office of the president, director of admissions and others in Agoura Hills/ Thousand Oaks area in the state of CA.

 

Lerner: "I can be wrong about Business degrees issued in CA."
Bear: It was Pacific Western University that operated another school, also called Pacific Western University, that had an approved business school in California.

 

I know of a current chair and full professor at a state university with a Ph.D. from Kennedy-Western University. I am not a malicious person so I haven't bothered to question the university's administration about the professor's credential.

 

There's another instructor at a private research university who earned an M.D. degree from the for-profit, Caribbean-based Ross University School of Medicine. This instructor also earned a J.D. from Thomas Cooley Law School, dubbed "the worst law school in America." In addition, this individual earned an MBA from the for-profit Keller School of Management at DeVry University and a Ph.D. from Kennedy-Western University.

 

Dr. Bear,
You are correct.
Yep, I confused the two entities. My friend studied at PWU, not KWU.
Lots of time passed I forgot.

Thanks for clarifying.

 

What's wrong with Ross? It's a real school, graduates real doctors. Here's its accreditation page. https://medical.rossu.edu/about/accreditation-and-approvals.html

And IIRC, it was good enough for the founder to sell for over $300 million in 2003, to DeVry Education (now Adtalem Global Education Inc.). Do you have something against EVERY for-profit school?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross_University_School_of_Medicine

 

No, that would be me.

Nonetheless, even the wiki on Ross indicates some shady times in its history. And, anecdotally by reputation, all Caribbean medical schools tend to be thought of as alternatives to U.S. medical schools for the students who were not good enough to be admitted to the U.S. schools.

Bottom line: Would I want one of my own physicians to have graduated from Ross? In a word, no. In two words, no way.

 

I am familiar with Ross and its accreditation. I always check my prospective physicians before making an appointment for a few reasons. One is to review their ratings, length of experience and the existence of any professional sanctions. Another reason is to weed out for-profit educated doctors. I know some of these for-profit medical schools may produce good medical doctors but I don't want to find out. I know it's not good to stereotype but we all do.

I absolutely don't have an issue with every for-profit school but I do know that type of control status carries a negative reputation. That is why after earning my associate and bachelor's degree at Ashworth College (for-profit), I vowed not to earn another degree at a for-profit school. I ended up attending American College of Education (ACE) for 1 term in the Ed.D. program. ACE is an awesome for-profit by the way, IMO. I absolutely love ACE!! I also love Ashworth because I was able to earn my AAS and B.S. for under 10k and incurred no student loans. If only Ashworth had regional accreditation, I would endorse them at the same level as ACE. I also like the American Public University System (APU & AMU) as well as California Southern University. All the others, IMO, are trash!

 

My kids' pediatrician graduated from a Caribbean Medical School. Wanna fight about it?

I jest of course. I just find the whole "I would never go to a doctor who went to X school" to be one of the most absurdly ignorant statements ever to be uttered.

Our pediatrician did go to a Caribbean Medical School, it's true. And he also went on to do his residency at New York Presbyterian and is a licensed physician in the State of New York. That isn't something that you can just life hack your way into. And the fact that he had a pretty decent residency speaks to how well he must have performed in medical school as well as how good his test scores must have been.

As someone who has had emergency surgery before, I can tell you that I'm not going to get all arrogant about the credentials of my surgeon when I'm being wheeled into the OR.

Medical school does not represent the totality of medical education for a doctor. And foreign medical school graduates are at a major disadvantage in landing a residency when they hit the U.S. That disadvantage increased exponentially if the foreign medical school graduate happens to have been U.S. born. Then they also take on a one year wait before they can even attempt to match with a residency.

The people with the lowest test scores from the worst schools don't tend to land residencies. You can find them working with useless MDs as ER scribes and OR techs and nursing aides. If your doctor was good enough to get a residency (especially a good residency and even more especially a good residency in a competitive field) then you can bet that they are on the level. They didn't sneak in a side door. And they worked much harder than their U.S. trained counterparts just to get to the same place.

We can criticize the amount of debt they maybe took on. But trying to write off a person's career entirely because we don't like that they went to Ross? Come now. Let's be sensible.

 

I would prefer to have a doctor who graduated at the top of her class at a for-profit than a doctor who graduated at the bottom of her class at a non-profit. Good doctors come out of all legitimate med schools.

 

But, in fact, I never said that. I asked, "Would I want one of my physicians to be a Ross graduate?" And the answer is no. Does that mean that I would never consent to treatment by a Ross grad? The answer is also no.

To every rule there is an exception. Every rule. Always an exception. On this forum, people tend to take the rule, come up with one of the exceptions, and literally say, "Wanna fight about it?"

Again, the answer to that one is no. Because I have a Ph.D. And they don't. So, as always, I laugh at them. In fact, I laugh at everyone.

I don't know that I have ever met a Ross grad. But as much as I question the Ross credential, I would question why a major hospital would engage a Ross grad as a resident - it seems to me that they're scraping the bottom of the barrel to fill their residency pool.

Finally, there is an old (very old) joke: What do you call a person who graduated last in his or her class at medical school? Doctor.

 

Yeah!!!

No, not really. I kind of agree with you. Sort of...

When it comes to Caribbean medical schools, I'd stick with schools accredited by the Caribbean regional medical accreditor -- CAAM-HP (Caribbean Accreditation Authority for Medicine and Health Professions). This was set up by CARICOM and models its standards on American LCME medical accreditation. CAAM-HP accredit only a fraction of the offshore medical schools (they have turned down many, including ones regularly discussed on this board). Ross is indeed one of the accredited ones, though their accreditation is 'with conditions', extended until December 2019 (I expect that they will meet the conditions and their accreditation will be continued). I consider the many Caribbean medical schools not accredited by CAAM-HP to be unaccredited. (The World Health Organization list of medical schools is absolutely worthless.)

https://www.caam-hp.org/programs

While I'm prepared to believe that the CAAM-HP schools overlap American medical schools in credibility, that only seems to be true at the low end. The best Caribbean offshore medical schools (the accredited ones) seem to compare with very low-end American medical schools. They may be more comparable to the bottom half of American osteopathic schools, which seem to typically be less substantial than medical schools.

Here in California where I live, in order for a foreign medical graduate to get a California medical license, the graduate must have graduated from a school approved by the Medical Board of California (the state licensing agency). When it comes to Caribbean medical schools, their list of approved schools is even more restrictive than the CAAM-HP list. (There are CAAM-HP accredited schools that don't appear on the California list and hence don't qualify graduates for a California medical license.)

http://www.mbc.ca.gov/Applicants/Medical_Schools/Schools_Recognized.aspx

As for me, my HMO gives me the ability to choose my primary care physician. I indeed gave thought to where these people received their medical education. But that wasn't my only consideration. I eventually chose a physician educated in Myanmar (!) because I liked her. Her medical school is on the California list and she has a California medical license.

But that's just a primary care physician which at my HMO largely serves to provide checkups, monitor my cholesterol and acts as a gatekeeper to the specialists. Since even a nurse practitioner can perform those fairly elementary functions, I'm not concerned. I'd accept a graduate of an accredited Caribbean medical school for that. But perhaps not for neurosurgery or oncology.

How is that any different than any employer not recognizing degrees awarded by unaccredited schools?

 

Except, you see, the problem is that my one case isn't really an exception. Ross graduates need to go through a residency in order to get a license, the same as any other physician.

You're talking out of both sides of your mouth on this one. On the one hand you say that the Ross graduate with a decent residency is an exception to the rule you've created here. On the other hand, you basically start throwing out a vague accusation that a major hospital was "scraping the bottom of the barrel" in taking on a resident who may have had stellar test scores, amazing recommendations and maybe even a clinical career pre-MD (say, a former nurse or physicians assistant).

Far more likely, particularly in states that are not New York, California or Illinois, you're going to find that your physician graduated from a residency program that is, well, not top shelf but still wholly legitimate and capable of training a physician. My PCP went to UPenn and did his residency in San Bernardino. Is that a great residency program? I have no idea. Because I base my decision on things like reviews and, far more often, does this guy accept my insurance.

It is, in fact, because you have a PhD that makes this so absurd. You have a doctorate. You ostensibly can piece together a logical argument that contributed to a field of study. And yet, you're basically saying that doctors of certain medical schools are shit. Even if they did good residencies then they're still shit because their residency programs must have had an off year and all of the Harvard and Hopkins grads went somewhere else.

If you want to express a personal preference that is completely irrational then by all means. But don't go flopping your PhD onto the table like it's a scientific decision. Because then you're kind of opening yourself up to folks digging in on how your doctoral alma mater isn't exactly on the top shelf either. And before you go ahead and say that you don't care what anyone thinks since you have a PhD and they don't, I'm pretty sure you're not sporting an MD on your wall as you crap on graduates of a medical school you have no experience with and no clinical training or experience with which to criticize their performance.

So prefer all you like. But this does not a professional opinion make.

 

Wow, Jay, I'm surprised at how strung out you're getting over this. First, remember that I joke about everything. Everything. Including my own Ph.D. If folks want to dig at my own doctoral alma mater, I'll likely be the first to agree with them.

Of course I'm not sporting an M.D. You're getting way too close to ad hominem arguments here. Is it because you have sacrificed the care of your children to a Ross graduate? (Chill out - I'm going for the humor.) Or because your own degrees include one from DEAC and one from an RA for-profit?

Besides, I never purported to be giving a professional opinion on Ross. It's very much a personal opinion. I was raised in an area with five medical schools, and even have my preferences among the five. In fact, all but one of my physicians graduated one particular medical school, and the two physicians in my family graduated from the top two med schools in the area. With that and fifty cents, I can buy the same quarter-cup of Starbucks as anyone else.

On this forum, people tend to prefer the schools from which they have earned degrees. I have come to the conclusion that every school has faults. Some just have more faults than others.

I stand by my statements on Ross. And the rest of the Caribbean. Great place to get a suntan, I'm sure, but I'll pass up on an education there.

 

And regardless of which school they graduated from, even if they're at the bottom of the class, they're still called "Doctor", with all the perks that come with that title. After diddling around with more physicians then I care to ever again, in my late wife's struggle with lymphoma, I can tell you that I look for two things now when I visit with a doctor. One is the ability to take a complex subject and communicate well on a layperson's level. That shows me that not only do they have the knowledge but they personally care enough to make sure that a non-medical person can completely understand what they're talking about. And 2, and these both really kind of go hand in hand, besides a good bedside manner....admit what they don't know. Don't get everybody's hopes up that the patient will be cured, especially if you're the patient, because everyone views you as a god in your profession, and to admit you're not sure of the prognosis would mean that, oh the horror, human.

 

I'm actually not really upset about this, though I suspect that this is one of those situations where the tone of my posts is more difficult to read. I think you're reading snarkiness where I'm intending only to point out disparity.

 

The University of the West Indies is the most prestigious university in the Caribbean. It is a public university with a great medical school (MBBS degree) and should not be associated with the Caribbean-based, for-profit American medical schools.