by R. Asmerom
Medical school is not an easy venture for any aspiring doctor. Not only is it a tasking profession but one which is extremely competitive. So competitive that many American medical students go overseas to the Caribbean to take advantage of programs like the one offered by Ross University in Dominica.
According to the New York Times, however, that education funnel is under threat. As it stands today, many of those Caribbean based programs promise their students that they’d be able to do their third and fourth year trainings at New York state hospitals, but it appears that New York State medical schools are now campaigning to end the setup by which Caribbean schools use New York state as extensions of their campus. According to the Times, “New York has been particularly affected by the influx because it trains more medical students and residents — fledgling doctors who have just graduated from medical school — than any other state. The New York medical school deans say that they want to expand their own enrollment to fill the looming shortage, but that their ability to do so is impeded by competition with the Caribbean schools for clinical training slots in New York hospitals.”
The U.S. has a shortage of doctors and more than a quarter of the residents in United States hospitals are trained outside of the country. School officials from the Caribbean schools are saying that the opportunity to help meet this demand and tackle the doctor shortage should be embraced. New York medical schools are standing by the edict of the American Medical Association which contends that “the core clinical curriculum of a foreign medical school should be provided by that school and that U.S. hospitals should not provide substitute core clinical experience.”
