Canadian Health Care Network; (behind subscription wall).
The College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan has undertaken a historical review of complaints of sexual misconduct by physicians licensed in the province and come to a startling finding: the vast majority of cases involved international medical graduates (IMGs).
The review was conducted by associate registrar Bryan Salte at the request of the college council in the fall. Dated December 13 and only made public at the council’s February meeting, a copy of the four-page memorandum was provided to the Medical Post.
He looked at the college’s records back to 1984, but Salte wrote in the report that he was able to search all complaints of unprofessional misconduct back to 2004. Before that date records only contained details of penalty decisions in which a physician had been found guilty of unprofessional conduct, or had admitted to unprofessional conduct.
He also cautioned “the range of sexual misconduct complaints is not identified” and “there is no breakdown by severity of the conduct alleged. Thus a complaint of inappropriate sexual questioning, and a complaint of attempted sexual stimulation of a patient will both be reported as complaints of sexual misconduct.”
He acknowledged that Saskatchewan has a very-high ratio of IMGs, saying “slightly more than 50% of Saskatchewan physicians for the period reviewed are IMGs.” He added that: “If there is an equal distribution of complaints against IMGs and physicians whose medical degrees were obtained in Canada, one would expect that about half of the complaints would be filed against physicians from each group.”
Sexual complaints 1984 to 2010 Year Range IMG Domestic Graduate 2006-2010 38 3 2001-2005 27 1 1996-2000 5 0 1991-1995 6 0 1985-1990 8 0
h/t Manny from Moncton
I have a feeling this won’t be mentioned on the CBC.
Obviously, we lack the necessary cultural sensitivity to accept this as normal medical practice.
It will be on CBC, “The people of Sask are so racist, complaining about foreign educated doctors at such a disproportionate rate.”
This “report” is racist and should never have been published, much less reported on SDA. The authors should be sacked!
Who are we to judge these foreign doctors, who come from cultural milieus much different from the capitalist/imperialist country they find themselves in today? Undoubtedly, their attempts to put their patients at ease have been entirely misconstrued. Shame!
Will the complainants receive public lashings like they would in the doctors’ home countries?
Kudos to the college for the report.
The women that made the complaints were probably “uncovered meat” anyway. What did they expect!
Are you talking about brown or white immigrant doctors?
Who were the women? Brown, White, Married, single?
Were they also immigrant or domestic?
These stats are ambiguous and it matters if anything is to be done about it.
Just askin’.
Yikes!
Perhaps some ‘Affirmative Action’ is required to blunt these numbers somewhat.
Doctor, is that a syringe in you pocket, or are you just glad to see me?
For bonus points, see if you can guess what country has the most IMGs in Canada doing their residency and fellowships.
Oh go on, take a guess.
*
another interesting doctor-related statistic…
The failure rate for first-time IMGs between 2000 and 2005 was another 40 percent.
What does that leave? “Not a lot,” Lee said. “The number’s not huge.”
When pressed, Lee refuses to divulge the final number of foreign-trained doctors who
actually make it through the funnelling system which weeds out those who can’t hack it.
“I don’t publish that mother of all stats,” he said.
By contrast, Canadian students pass the exams at about a 97 percent rate, Lee said.
hmmm…
*
Kate’s headline about Tommy Douglas is a non sequitur.
Clearly, there is a “cultural” problem with some doctors who are immigrants. Canadian society has traditionally had very
high standards both for science and for morality. This is not true for all cultures.
However, 50% of Saskatchewan General Practitioners are from South Africa, which, generally speaking, has very high standards. Without these doctors clearly Saskatchewan patients would have a greater shortage of G.P.s than we have now.
That we’re not able to train enough doctors is a reality due in part to the aging population and in part due to the Health Care bureaucracy. Baby boomers retiring is a problem for skilled labour force requirements everywhere, but for doctors there is no short term fix.
Though health is more determined by lifestyle than doctoring. Vaccinations can be done by nurses.
“I was a doctor in my country!!”
Yeah, – a witch doctor.
Where they come from, this is considered a standard perquisite to augment the low pay.
Yet another consequence of socialist medicine.
Well right now the most important issue in Canada is The Great White Dopes problem with Bev Odas defunding another parisitic organization. Problems like what’s uncovered here with foreign doctors, is nothing but fluff to a Libsuk. These stinking NDPEE/Libsuks like Bob Rae are so full of themselves they will soon be exploding, that giant farting sound we will soon hear will be Libsuks exploding as the newest polls sink in. It’s over Libs, the greenie environMENTALism is toast, people want jobs, there is no more money for your SCAMS.
Larry said: “That we’re not able to train enough doctors is a reality due in part to the aging population and in part due to the Health Care bureaucracy.”
Well, no.
The “shortage” of doctors is -entirely- due to:
1) an insufficient number of seats in Canadian medical schools, which is a political decision taken by the provinces. They were seeking to reduce doctor billings by reducing the number of doctors. Also known as -rationing-.
2) an astounding increase in the number of female doctors, who work about half as hard and half as long as male doctors due to child bearing and child rearing. Due entirely to a political decision taken by the provinces, which control who gets those medical school seats.
3) an amazing coincidence that rural doctors make JACK compared to doctors in high density urban locations, because fee for service pay means you have to maintain a certain volume of patients to make your money.
4) an unpleasant truth, nobody wants to be stuck in East Moose Antler Sask in the winter, not even people who were born there.
So the -only- people you can get to fill those positions are guys who come from foreign lands on some kind of Special Deal education thing. They graduate from BongoBongo University medical school program, the Republic of Bongo has a deal with Canadian provinces where their medical grads do residency and fellowships in remote Canadian locations, the Republic of Bongo pays the Canadian residency program -handsomely- for the privilege, and the stupid rural people stop whinging because a doctor finally came to town.
And that is the reason why.
Why they misbehave is obvious. Far away from home, surrounded by crazy White Devils and snow, paid crap and pushed around by White Devil bureaucrats all the time. I’d misbehave too.
Priceless Phantom; truth is priceless, being accepted to Med school is very tenuous for white ordinary boys, their marks have to be extra high to have even a chance. But come here from a foreign land with multiple wives and shazam. Harper desperatly needs a majority to clean the liberal outhouse that Canada became under the theives.
the stupid rural people stop whinging
sigh
bear, I’m writing that from the point of view of the morally superior socialist brain trust that designed this system.
Obviously, all people who chose to live far away from the important urban centers where all the important people are and where all the action is are by definition stupid.
I don’t think I can lay this one at the feet of Tommy Douglas. Saskatchewan is not New York, or Toronto or Vancouver. Drs are mobile labour. They will go where they maximize their personal utility – most often to a warmer place with more to do and more to make.
That will leave an opening in Saskatchewan for foreign Drs. to enter into Canada (so most of them can move on and up too.)
But what is it about foreign Drs that seems to make them more prone to sexually abusing their patients? More work is necessary.
I wonder if by publishing this data, the College has just pointed out a problem within their community and now have a duty to do something about it or face potential liability for failure to perform their oversight properly?
What’s missing is the accompanying stat of how many imG grads and how many domestic grads there are in SK. And what’s the ratio of new Doc’s that are Imgs compared to domestic.
Knowing those numbers could greatly reduce or increase the difference in complaints.
Gord, most of the Sask domestic grads take their diploma and RUN to either Ontario or BC, the really hard cases go to The Patch and work like devils making Money, baby.
Because remember, -half- the people in medical school are -female-, they do not want to work an hour or more from Walmart, and they do not want to be the -ONLY DOCTOR- within an easy helicopter flight in case somebody should come in with something life threatening. Women want to work someplace convenient and where they have somebody to help them when it all goes wrong, as it inevitably does.
IMGs, by contrast, are mainly men and they have to go where they are SENT. For them Canada is a totalitarian state populated by insane foreigners who HATE being treated by a non-White doctor or nurse.
This is not a rural phenomenon, I hasten to add. Brown/Chinese/etc. physicians inform me that the number of people who demand to be treated by a WHITE doctor is much, much higher in your low class urban neighborhoods. Its just that it also happens in small town hospitals, and unlike a city where you can get away from the White Devils after work, in a small town you are stuck with ’em.
This is why it is rank insanity to force IMGs to work in under served rural areas instead of increasing the PAY for said areas.
Well, well, well.
There is another person just culpable as Tommy Douglas and that is former PM Chretien for reducing openings at medical school.
Not only that, after we have poached doctors from third world countries we send those countries foreign aid because they have very high mortality rates because they have no doctors. That way we get to pay multiple times over.
Sad. Guess I’ll wear my woolly bloomers and eat raw garlic. These will mostly keep me free of infection but should I ever end up near any liberal-fingered physicians, they will likely just leave me alone and prescribe from a distance.
And this is why it is forbidden in Eurostan to track violent crimes by ethnicity, or god forbid, 7th century fascist cult membership.
Soon to come to a jurisdiction near you.
So true minuteman, so true.
The simple truth is that Canadian politicians didn’t realize that cutting back on medical university slots would cause problems down the road. Even if the slots tripled today it would be over eight years before changes are felt in the community. That little f*ck from shiwinigate was, in no small way, part of the problem.
Frankly, it’s hardly surprising, and when one reads the “naughty boy” section of the college bulletins, the impression is reinforced.
I’ve worked in the selection and training of IMGs in our program. There are some IMGs who are outstanding. One of the top residents in our program was an IMG.
There are others who tried to get into the program whose qualifications for medical school, under questioning consisted of, “I come from a good family.” Read, “Well connected.” Believe me, it showed.
There are others whose academic standards are appropriate and whose attitudes towards women, aboriginals, blue collar workers etc, would strip paint!!! Believe me, it puts the lie to “All cultures are equal.” I’d looove to have the idiots who tout that nonsense treated by these characters in a special clinic reserved only for them. Cultural sensitivity wouldn’t last five minutes into the first visit!
We’ve no shortage of trainees from our system. The problem lies in the inability of a command economy, such as the existing health care system, to provide the incentives which allow the home grown talent to meet the existing demand for their services. This would explain why at my last class reunion roughly half of my classmates were practicing in the US. Despite repeated efforts, many of them simply couldn’t make a financial go of it under the centrally planned system.
: The Phantom at February 15, 2011 4:35 PM
Maybe where you live, but I don’t think I see that kind of racism where I am, in Saskatoon. And rural communities appreciate their physicians, and accept them.
Please remember the most notorius of all these IMGs, can’t remember the name but he was *white,* South African-trained and raped several women, including his step-daughter.
Over the weekend BC was reporting that two doctors from Haiti were reading scans/MRI’s etc without the experience to do so. Apparently/allegedly the doctors have moved on to other provinces, how many people who were told they didn’t have cancer that do have cancer was not reported. How someone trained in a third world nation get acreditation as an MD or Doctor in Canada boggles my mind.
Meanwhile in Ontario, the pressure to accept IMGs into postgraduate medical training programs grows every year….
However, this trend is inevitable. As the National Health Service in Britain has gone broke, increasingly the grunt work of looking after hospital and clinic patients is being done by physicians who can barely speak english, qualifications sometimes very dubious.
But to point this out is racist.
http://www.minority-thought.com/2011/02/daily-express-plays-race-card-over-nhs.html
Phantom@2:51 nailed it.
They have a 2yr (I think) program at the U of Alberta for IMGs to bring them up to standard. However the program has challenges finding places to take on practicum students. Many offices take one, have a bad experience, and then aren’t interested any more.
Another consideration is that the shortage of university seats in medical school (and dental school, engineering school, etc.) effectively exports high quality job opportunities.
Imagine you’re a taxpayer, you raise your kid here, he/she has great marks, BUT he can’t get in to medical school because it is so competitive. Meanwhile, we are importing doctors from other countries to fill the need. Your kid takes a different (lesser?) job and you pay to bring in and employ a foreign grad instead.
Is that fair to you or your kid? Does asking the question make me a bad person?
More rats in the corn , only we won’t pick em out to be rid of the critters. Who are these IMG’s? To polite I figure or scared.
This reminds me of when the Medical societies thought a little genitalia mutilation was okay. I guess when you have murdered 4 million Canadians , a little touch & feel with patients, is small beer.
When Dr’s gave up the Hippocratic oath for money. Is it any wonder ethics went with it?
When relativism is your standard nothing is wrong in itself only other peoples perceptions. How many other institutions have been comprimised as well?
JMO
@ Phantom
There is the possibility that there may be no price you can afford to pay for doctors to work in certain locales. Which isn’t to argue against opening more medical school seats or what have you. It could be that medical graduates generally would be more inclined to work elsewhere.
Generally speaking I too would prefer not to be treated by a witch doctor thank you very much. Unless I have a zombie problem of some kind or had some growth of bad juju.
Ho hum… another do good government project gets unintended results.
The problem is meddling busibodies .. politicians and activists …. that desperately need to be made permanently unemployed.
Do the complainants have four witnesses? If not, the number of incidents is 0. Problem solved.
Wonder what the stats would show if there had been a cross Canada review.
(Drudge – CBS – 60 Minutes Reporter Sexually Assaulted in Cairo – still remains in U.S. hospital)
Maybe now our PC media will give sober second thought to wasting their sympathy on barbarians – bring on SUN TV.
Phantom @2:51
Just to clarify your first point, and because I never miss a chance to diss Bob Rae:
http://www.chathamthisweek.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?archive=true&e=1925802
Rae actually gave millions to his beloved U of T to compensate for the smaller class of med students.
One one hand, I am impressed by the courage of the Sask College for publishing these quasi-racist statistics. On the other hand, the first data is 25 years old and was very convincing. Why did it take so long?
Perhaps I am exceptional but I have had little or no complaints with “ethnic” MDs….perhaps ocasionally to find it necessary to be very firm….dealing with their superiority complex.
wendyG said: “Maybe where you live, but I don’t think I see that kind of racism where I am, in Saskatoon.”
I live in the boondocks of Haldimand county Ontario, which is like Sask except with the odd hill. Very little overt racism. Hamilton, whole ‘nother story. Many many jerks. That’s why I don’t live in Hamilton. Ask Kathy Shaidle about Hamilton, she’s got stories.
But in a small town, it only takes one or two jerks to wind up some 25 year old kid upper class from Saudi Arabia or India or wherever. Couple of frequent fliers with really objectionable manners, oh yeah. Stress is cumulative, and there’s no -escape-.
Most people who make it through medical school etc. can take that and remain professional. Some can’t. From them you get trouble.
Plus don’t forget, these guys are going -back- to Republic of Bongo when their residency/fellowship is over. Nobody back home will give a fiddler’s flying crap if they hear young Dr. Billbongo’s foot slipped while he was in Canada. Probably the white devil woman deserved it, they are all crazy over there you know. The snow drives them mad!
M said: “There is the possibility that there may be no price you can afford to pay for doctors to work in certain locales.”
In a socialist system, M? Money is no object. 🙂
However your point is quite valid. In that case, in a free country, it becomes incumbent upon the people who live in that locale to either move to where the doctor is, or make do. That’s what people did before Tommy Douglas and his centrally planned nightmare.
It might be worth reminding some of my fellow hosers that Asians routinely (mainly in secret) look down on us as inferiors. They think of us as monkeys. If you ever go to a casino and Asian card players want to hit two face cards, they call out “monkey, monkey.”
Of course they are going to sexually molest women at some statistically significant level. They are both attracted to our women, and view them as inferiors. It’s the same sexual dynamic as horny liberal women who go to the West Indies to make it with beautiful black boys.
Too much reality for a cold Canadian night? 2 bad.
Ah yes, medical residents from the Arab Moslem world, education paid for by their governments…then supposedly sent back.
Some do post doc fellowships for years, trying to delay the inevitable because they love it here in tolerant Canada.
One case comes to mind, a very good looking, very competent and charming resident stayed here in Canada and set up shop in a southern Ontario town. Not 3 years later he was busted dealing drugs.
And this phenomenon is not restricted to the physician world. My contacts in community pharmacy are upset by the illegal or more likely shady dealings of some pharmacist FMGs….a possible contributing factor for the draconian Ontario drug benefit changes???