PMID- 20354377
OWN - NLM
STAT- MEDLINE
DCOM- 20100525
LR  - 20220321
IS  - 1938-808X (Electronic)
IS  - 1040-2446 (Linking)
VI  - 85
IP  - 4
DP  - 2010 Apr
TI  - Perspective: private schools of the Caribbean: outsourcing medical education.
PG  - 622-30
LID - 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181d2aee1 [doi]
AB  - Twenty-five percent of the U.S. physician workforce is made up of international 
      medical graduates (IMGs), a growing proportion of whom (27% in 2005) are U.S. 
      citizens. Most IMGs graduate from "offshore medical schools" (OMSs), for-profit 
      institutions primarily located in the Caribbean region and established to train 
      U.S. students who will return home to practice medicine. Following the recent 
      call for a larger physician workforce, OMSs rapidly increased in number. Unlike 
      U.S. schools, which must be accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical 
      Education, OMSs are recognized by their home countries and may not be subject to 
      a rigorous accreditation process. Although gaps in specific data exist, a closer 
      look at OMSs reveals that most enroll three groups of students per year, and many 
      educate students initially at "offshore campuses" and later at clinical sites in 
      the United States. Students from some OMSs are eligible for the U.S. Federal 
      Family Education Loan Program. The lack of uniform data on OMSs is problematic 
      for state medical boards, which struggle to assess the quality of the medical 
      education offered at any one school and which, in some cases, disapprove a 
      school. With the United States' continued reliance on IMGs to meet its health 
      needs, the public and the profession will be best served by knowing more about 
      medical education outside of the United States. Review of medical education in 
      OMSs whose graduates will become part of U.S. health care delivery is timely as 
      the United States reforms its health-care-delivery system.
FAU - Eckhert, N Lynn
AU  - Eckhert NL
AD  - Academic Programs, Partners Harvard Medical International, Boston, Massachusetts, 
      USA. leckhert@phmi.partners.org
LA  - eng
PT  - Comparative Study
PT  - Journal Article
PL  - United States
TA  - Acad Med
JT  - Academic medicine : journal of the Association of American Medical Colleges
JID - 8904605
SB  - IM
MH  - Caribbean Region/ethnology
MH  - Education, Medical/*organization & administration
MH  - Foreign Medical Graduates/*supply & distribution
MH  - Humans
MH  - Physicians/*supply & distribution
MH  - *Private Sector
MH  - Schools, Medical/*organization & administration
MH  - United States
EDAT- 2010/04/01 06:00
MHDA- 2010/05/26 06:00
CRDT- 2010/04/01 06:00
PHST- 2010/04/01 06:00 [entrez]
PHST- 2010/04/01 06:00 [pubmed]
PHST- 2010/05/26 06:00 [medline]
AID - 00001888-201004000-00021 [pii]
AID - 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181d2aee1 [doi]
PST - ppublish
SO  - Acad Med. 2010 Apr;85(4):622-30. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0b013e3181d2aee1.