Is this wise spread....studying medicine abroad for reduced fees as possibly lower entrance requirements then getting a job in the UK?

[mids2019]

A colleague of mines brother has went to Georgia to study medicine with vastly reduced costs and I believe less competition and lower entrance requiremtnsr.

The brother then intends to get a job in the UK as they believe there is equivalence with UK university degrees and we have a history of employing doctors with qualifications world wide.

Is this a reasonable thing to do or is it trying to get into medicine in a questionable fashion if their A levels etc. weren't quite there?

Medical school in Eastern Europe is a pretty well established route now.

I know a British lad with parents born elsewhere who didn't get an offer in the UK. He trained in Italy and now works in another European country.

Control of med school places is so tight in the UK to protect the viability of quality training further up the ladder (at least in theory) that plenty of perfectly good candidates don't get in here. If they can swing training elsewhere, more power to their elbows.

Well I’d rather not be treated by a medico who thinks lower standards are ok.

Snort. Do you know which university your GP qualified from? Did you ask the surgeon who look out your gall bladder whether they graduated top of their cohort or scraped through near the bottom?

This is mentioned loads on Wiwikau sounds like a good back up

I think it's the difficult job of judging equivalence between degrees from different nations and I have to confess that I have attempted to do this in another field and it is difficult. I don't have a great feel for HE in other countries.

It's fine but they should apply to the uk foundation programme. Ime (nhs manager) the Eastern European equivalent is NOT equivalent and they are more likely to cope in the nhs if they start at f1

Well, I do actually. I’m a professor there.

Be careful.

A lot of doctors in DD's deanery studied overseas, some good and some not. When she started F1, a surprising number of her peers came from places like Malaysia.

They do not expect this to continue. Next year, the recent expansion of medical schools will start to impact F1 applications. Rather than having a shortfall their deanery expects to be able to fill all its F1 places with local graduates (who tend to go to local universities and to want to stay local). There should be similar across the UK. Trouble is that despite the rise in numbers no one has addressed the bottleneck post F2. Even UK trained medics face unemployment so, even though they are able to compete equally for jobs/training, there will be less room for overseas trained doctors.

Unfortunately any doctor from anywhere in the world can apply on equal footing as UK trainer doctors. We are the ONLY country in the world who do not prioritise the doctors we have trained. And it's why many F2s this year are worried about being unemployed next August. We have enough doctors, we don't have enough jobs. 29:1 ratios in specialities of applicants to jobs.

Yeah, right. You looked up the grades of everyone who’s ever treated you. Who are all local.

I’m an academic at the same institution where my GP trained, and that tells me precisely nothing about whether she sailed through her training, or scraped though on as many resits as she was allowed.

I work in a medical discipline and there is a competitive training scheme recruitment exercise and it can't be limited to UK applicants. There are hundreds of Indian applicants with vast experience in this discipline who are willing to drop to a training grade as it is many cases a salary increase and they are their prospects better in this country. The Indian applicants are shortlisted as you can't ignore the considerable professional experience but recently graduated UK applicants can't seem to get on a training scheme designed for them.

interestingly there is trust where there is a policy of not employing from abroad if there is a suitable UK applkcant. I am sure this is illegal but it shows that there is some feeling that we should be peotec tionist about health care jobs

I took this route, although I speak the language of the country I studied in because my parents are from there.

I would say that British students are taught to work in the NHS rather than just Medicine, everything is very guideline based and there is a huge focus on soft skills. Depending on which country you go to there is virtually zero work on the soft skills. Mainly foreign graduates struggle with the situation judgement type assessments that they use in the UK, I think this is due to the lack of soft skills and culture, Medicine is paternalistic and there is a hierarchy outside the UK. Here is so flat in terms of hierarchy.

Are you sure your child wants to actually do Medicine in the UK though ? There is a lot of scope creep which isn’t being met which much resistance and there are Doctors who cannot get jobs……… it’s also worth noting that new UK medical degrees will not be acceptable in the USA because the G mC have decided not to be accredited by the WFME which I required if you want your degree to recognised by ECMFG to apply for a license in many countries. So actually better to go abroad!

Happy for a PM if you want to discuss further.

@mids2019 can you let me know which trust. Be good to know DD at least got a chance !

It’s not up to your colleague’s brother to judge equivalence. When he returns to the UK he will need to apply for registration with the GMC and they will judge equivalence by requiring him to sit the PLAB 1 exam (multiple choice) and the PLAB 2 clinical assessment. It will cost money and he’ll need to study to pass them. He will also need to pass an English language exam but that should be easy if he is English mother tongue. If he passes he can gain registration and then be eligible to apply for jobs in the UK.

The GMC point is not true. They didn’t need to apply for WFME accreditation due to other accreditations so UK graduates are eligible (and will continue to be eligible) to apply for registration in the US.

Source ?

Me. It’s literally my job.

You work for a licensing board in the USA?

I would look carefully at the course content to see if it would prepare the student to work in the UK. I would also make sure that the GMC will accept the qualification. New Vision for example, are not accepted.

I would also make that the student has the A levels to be accepted by a UK medical school. An Eastern European university taking people with BCD in psychology and humanities subjects is a red flag I'm afraid.

I’m trying to preserve some anonymity but the GMC has NCFMEA accreditation until 2029 (always been renewed this far) and so that negates the need for WFME accreditation.

@Prometheus

I stand corrected! I seem to remember a few years ago there was a fuss about this. Good for UK grads though!

There was and I helped to resolve it 😉Definitely all for the best for UK grads like you say.

I thought uk medics had to do a costly conversion course/exam to practice in the USA? Just curious if that has changed?

I know someone studying medicine in Prague. She's at least two or three years in now to her degree.