Medical school students from offshore med schools (particularly from those in the Caribbean) are flocking to U.S. teaching hospitals to complete their third- and fourth-year hospital rotation requirements, reports a recent Chronicle for Higher Education article.
The number of offshore students performing the clinical portion of their studies in New York hospitals alone is equal to the number of students from New York’s own med schools, a statistic which is angering many New York medical educators.
Some of the complaints fielded by the New York med school and hospital staffs include crowded teaching hospitals and inadequate room for New York’s own med students. Offshore med schools are paying New York hospitals to reserve spots for their students; New York med schools can’t compete with this, they say, for budget reasons. New York hospitals certainly can’t be blamed for accepting as many qualified students as possible, especially when offshore schools pay the hospitals between $400 and $450 per student per week of clinical training. The American schools pay little or nothing for the same clinical placements.
These offshore students are enrolled in one of 14 dual-campus” programs. This means that they spend the first two years “offshore” (usually in the Caribbean) and their last two years in the U.S. at U.S. teaching hospitals. Administrators at these programs defend their move of sending qualified students to top hospitals in New York, especially considering the doctor shortage in America.
Many of the offshore students who end up in New York teaching hospitals are students who were rejected from New York medical schools, many of which are cutting back on class sizes. To get an idea of numbers, the Chronicle article states that the average graduating class from a New York medical school is about 120 people. St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada graduated 640 students last year; Dominica’s Ross University School of Medicine graduated 754.
Many New York medical schools worry that the students coming from offshore programs won’t bring as high a caliber of work and training to their state’s hospitals, but many believe their claims to be unfounded.
Please see The Chronicle’s article, “Students From Caribbean Med Schools Head for New York, Angering Some Local Programs,” for more on the fight for spots in New York’s training hospitals.
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