This link was so interesting........

[Rwl22]

I decided to post it on the main forum.

Good and Bad IMG schools:

http://www.aaimg.com/evaluation/index.html

[Beaker]

the aaimg is known to be bogus. i've seen a few ppl quoting this bogus organization lately and just had to respond. this is from the federation of world medical association (fowma) website. it's probably not any more legit than the aaimg, but i definitely wouldn't trust what the aaimg says. they have good criteria, but poor and unreliable methods of obtaining their outdated info (and that's putting it nicely).

Bogus (Fraud) Associations

AAIMG (American Association of International Medical Graduates)

About AAIMG.....! (American Associations of International Medical Graduates)
FOWMA has performed investigations through its councils, Committees, Commissions and task forces into the authenticity of several associations throughout the world. FOWMA will update the information from time to time on bogus, scam, fraud associations for all health care professionals who are looking into opportunities all over the world.

FOWMA is releasing the following information on AAIMG ( American Association of International Medical Graduates ) based on its detailed research and investigations through its task force.

1. AAIMG is a fraud and bogus organization.

2. AAIMG has registered in State of Nevada without any address. The listed address on the web site is 1802 N. Carson Street, Carson city, NV 89701 USA. There is no such existing address with AAIMG office.

3. AAIMG has no telephone numbers or Fax numbers listed to its association

4. The so called President Dr. Thomas Moore does not exist and is no one by that name in United States listed under AAIMG in any telephone directory or public information booklets like Staate Board licence, registration or any other source. The email listed as presaaimg@hotmail.com is a public hot mail with no direct email to AAIMG.

5. The so called Secretary Sarah B. Weinstein does not exist and is no one by that name in United States listed under AAIMG in any telephone directory or public information booklets like Staate Board licence, registration or any other source. The email listed as execsecaaimg@hotmail.com is a public hot mail with no direct email to AAIMG

6. FOWMA has investigated into the hosting of web site of AAIMG, which is a bogus scam and fraud association. The web site is hosted by a Russian web host company. AAIMG is a bogus web site and association hosted in Russia. Following is the address of the web site host in Russia.

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Billing Contact: Demkin, Andrew (HDIJIKMWTI) demkin@HOTMAIL.COM 60, Moika emb. apt.33 Saint-Petersburg, 190000 RUSSIA +7 812 3147397 +7 812 3147397

7. FOWMA has found a disclaimer at the bottom of the home page web site of AAIMG as follows:

Design and web hosting by OOO Nautilus, Russia Disclaimer: OOO Nautilus disclaims any responsibility for the content of this website provided by AAIMG

8.Reports of the task force of FOWMA who conducted investigation research into this bogus fraud association (AAIMG )has revealed that Administrations of the Medical Schools throught out Caribbean, Europe and other parts of the world were approached by this fraud AAIMG association and demanded money in US dollars anywhere from $3000 to $7500 for listing the medical school as exceeding AAIMG evaluation criteria . It was also found that Medical Schools who did not pay the money were listed as schools with multiple, serious deficiencies.

9. FOWMA has found that AAIMG web site is hosted by unknown individuals in Russia with self designed criteria to black mail, demand and extract money from medical schools.

10. FOWMA has also found that there are more than one bogus fraud associations like AAIMG operating their activities from outside of USA milking money from new medical schools. FOWMA has also found that AAIMG is making use of the laws of corporation in states like Nevada and Delaware, which are liberal to register and operate from countries like Russia.

11. FOWMA and its task force has found that this fraud association AAIMG has never visited any of the sites of any medical schools as published on their web site by unknown individuals.

12. FOWMA has also learned that there is a multimillion dollar law suit pending againiast this fraud association by several organizations.

13. FOWMA warns all individuals and organization including students, physicians to be careful in reviewing any publications from this bogus fraud association in the form of web information, paper information or by any other email system.

[dt]

This AAIMG is getting old. And yet people still fail to discern the validity of this site.

Suggestion: do a search of valueMD on aaimg, read the posts.

[teratos]

People always say that the AAIMG is a fraud, but why? From what I know of the various schoosl, the information is pretty accurate. I will concede the point that nobody know who they are, or how they arive at the information, but I have yet to see them put out info that is blatantly untrue. Take them with a grain of salt? Yes. Fraud? I dunno.... G

[Beaker]

but I have yet to see them put out info that is blatantly untrue.

if i show u an example, will u believe? how about 2? 3? how many will it take to convince u?

for spartan, aaimg says
"No catalog and web site and admission packet provide brief listing of courses."
"Minimal 32 month curriculum is an unrealistic, piecemeal approach to basic sciences. "

1. the web address is http://www.spartanmed.org/ that the aaimg says doesnt exist.
2. basic science r 16 months (4 semesters) and clinical sciences is another 20 monts (5 sems). so thats 36 months (not incl breaks) for total program which is much like other med schools incl the ones in the u.s. not the 32 months of basic sciences that aaimg claims.
3. attached is scan of catalog index for the catalog that the aaimg says doesn't exist.
4. as u can see from the catalog index that comes with the admission packet, there r 14 pages dedicated to the "brief listing of courses" incl detailed descriptions of each course. i guess the aaimg considers 14 pgs too "brief". i can scan 'em all 4 u if u still dont believe.
(these r a couple of yrs old in case anyone tries to say that spartan just made these)


theres 4 examples. still not enough?


for saba and mua, the aaimg says they're lacking
"There are facilities for quiet study time or research available to students. "

5. saba has a library
6. mua has a library (theres a pic in the mua album)


so theres 2 more examples for u. is that enough? i can probably find some more if u still dont believe the aaimg is bogus.


i already said the criteria is an excellent tool to evaluates schools, but i dont believe the aaimg has ever even been to most of those schools. most of the info they have can be found on the internet or even in these forums. do they have proof they went. of course not coz they claim
"Site visits were made to admission offices by AAIMG members posing as prospective applicants or as an applicant-parent team. "
sounds real professional and legit when they can't prove they went coz it was undercover. state medical boards announce their official visits to sites and some have even said that the aaimg is bogus.

besides alot of the criteria is based on subjective things, like when they say that ross is located in a unsafe area. according to who? do they have police reports or figures to back that statement? or just some "undercover" prospective getting opinions from students? sounds real scientific.

then they incl a deficiency for 1 school but not for another. why? they marked saba deficient for not requiring mcats, but ross wasnt counted as being deficient in this even though they dont require it either. theres lots of examples of this. so whats the deal?

sure some of the things they say might be true about some schools, but some of it isnt which makes them unreliable at best. so i'd advise someone to use their criteria, but do the research yourself coz the aaimg is a fraud!

[FrenchFrie]

dont forget that all the crap they say about st chirs has been proven incorrect also

[bts4202]

One of the main reasons that the AAIMG is invalid is because it is biased towards certain schools (see ross example above). The criteria (for the most part) are good ways to judge foriegn medical schools, but the evaluations need to be done by people who do not have personal investments in any of the schools being evaluated.

The other main problem is that there is no follow up and no accountability. No one knows who these people are and they only answer emails to who they want to. They do not have any avenues for appeal, complaints, nor re-assessment in the event of school advancement.

I would bet anthing that this site was made by a couple of students from a well known caribb school who ran searches on the web and reported rumours that they had heard. There is no way that these students did actual site visits to all of the schools listed. In fact, it seems odd that the easern european schools aren't graded as the other schools are. My guess is that this is because these school are not routinely discussed on these types of forums in the same depth that the other schools are.

[teratos]

I guess that the schools I'm familiar with are the schools that the AAIMG is biased towards. That could be why it seems pretty right on. G

[jenn-jenn]

With due respect to your research Mr Beaker, but one wonders what sort of teachers Spartan gets for less than $1000US per month. I know some one who was insulted by Spartan last year and offered EC 3000 per month to teach there.

Note that they have no locals on staff- they wont work for that. They have mostly youth from India just out of school who would jump at that pay. As most of them do, they will use that as a stepping stone to skip over to USA eventually.

STICK TO AAIMG's CRITERIA, even if you cant always agree with thier classification of good and bad schools.

SPARTAN HAS BEEN AROUND LONG ENOUGH THAT IF IT WAS DOING THE RIGHT THINGS IT WOULD BE UP THERE CONSISTENTLY WITH ROSS SGU AND AUC etc

[Beaker]

jenn-jenn, my post was not meant to defend or bash any particular school. i wrote about 4 or 5 different schools in that post and how the bogus aaimg conveniently left out some deficiencies for some schools and also how they marked apparently untrue deficiencies in others. my point was that even though the criteria of the aaimg is very good, they're reports about the different schools r unreliable and bogus coz some of their findings are correct but some r not. so yes, stick to the aaimg criteria. but NO, DO NOT RELY ON THE AAIMG's BOGUS REPORTS!

if u dont like a particular school for other reasons based on ur own research and not based on some bogus aaimg report, than i'll gladly debate it, but preferably under a different subject. but in response to ur post, the schools u mentioned (sgu, ross, auc) have very few locals teaching. ross has mr fortune and mrs lambert off the top of my head. spartan has dr tohme, dr. d, dr. wilson that i can think of right now, but probably more. so that info that u heard is incorrect. but i dunno how much they pay their professors to teach, but they've got the least expensive tuition so i wouldn't expect it to be as high as a school like sgu with the highest tuition. and if the theory about the aaimg taking money for "good" reports is true (i'm not saying its true!) than i doubt a school that wont offer its teacher lots of money would be willing to pay money for a good report

also sgu, auc and ross r know as the "big 3" b/c they are the biggest (highest # of students enrolled). schools like saba and spartan have been around a while and established decent track records while maintaining small classes so they will naturally not be as well-known. for the record, i think all of the schools mentioned r excellent schools to get an m.d. and should be chosen based on whats important for any particular person. i also think that the "big 3" is an excellent place to start. but if money, class size, or a variety of other things r a concern, theres some other very good options like saba, spartan, st chris, mua, unibe and others out there for those willing to do a little research.

when i first heard about the aaimg i blindly followed their reports, but my own research proved to me that their reports are not accurate. the fact that they're so mysterious doesnt help their credibility either independent research has led me and others to conclude that the aaimg reports r bogus mainly coz their reports r inaccurate and seem biased. i've shared some indisputable evidence (its hard to dispute the existance of a website or catalog when its right in front of ur eyes!) from a portion of my research in my post above to back my conclusions. most of the defenders of the aaimg happen to attend or have attended the schools with good reports. i dare any of those ppl to search thru the deficiency criteria and they will likely find at least a couple of deficiencies for their school that were "overlooked" by these biased reports (like the "no mcat required" deficiency that most foreign med schools should have). then look at the deficiencies for the "bad" schools and you'll probably find at least some deficiencies that don't really exist (like no study space when a pic of a library clearly disputes this).

so i never said any particular was great even though the aaimg says they're not or vice versa. i'm saying that their reports r not accurate.
use the aaimg criteria to evaluate the schools based on ur own research. do not rely on the bogus aaimg reports!

peace