Please support the Lawsuit aganist Medical Board - MUA need to support effort

[nevisbutterfly]

I encourage everyone on this forum, MUA current and past students to support the effort that AUA's effort in going against the medical board of Arkansas to have to answer for their actions. Please call your school or email and let them know that they should support this effort. I can save our school over $50,000 in trying to get on the CA list. Even if MUA does get on the list, it does no good for those of us that has already graduated or will graduate before we do obtain approval.

Medical school suing board
Graduates denied licenses in state
BY CAROLYNE PARK ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

A medical school in the Caribbean islands is suing the Arkansas State Medical Board and its 12 board members for not allowing its graduates to become licensed physicians in Arkansas.

The lawsuit on behalf of American University of Antigua and four former and current students was filed late Monday in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

American University of Antigua is one of 53 schools in Central America, the Caribbean and Africa that are on a list of “disapproved” medical schools approved by the medical board last year. The board developed the list in an effort to identify foreign medical schools so questionable in quality that their graduates shouldn’t be allowed to practice medicine in Arkansas.

But the university claims the board violated its own rules in developing the list “in favor of damaging and discriminating against AUA and other medical schools in the Caribbean region,” according to the lawsuit.

Further, it claims the board is violating the 14th Amendment rights of American citizens who are students at the school by preventing them the “right to practice the professions of their choice and in the right to apply for and to obtain a license to practice medicine in Arkansas without due process of law and without equal protection of the laws.”

The plaintiffs include Ar- kansas natives Amber Milward of Bentonville and Justin T. Harney of Crossett. Both are students at the university and plan to return to Arkansas to practice medicine after they graduate, according to the lawsuit.

Graduates Shreekanth Cheruku of Whitestone, N.Y., and Anjan Patel, of Pennsville, N.J., are also plaintiffs.

The medical board hasn’t yet filed a response to the lawsuit. Bill Trice, the board’s attorney, didn’t return phone messages left with his Little Rock office Tuesday.

New York attorney Leonard Sclafani and the Schults Law Firm of Little Rock are representing the university, its graduates and students.

Sclafani said this is the first lawsuit they’ve filed against a state medical board, although there are other states that deny medical licenses to its graduates.

“We filed against Arkansas because they’re particularly egregious in the way they went about following this trend,” he said. “Other states have done it in a gentler fashion.”

At its June 2008 meeting, the Arkansas medical board voted to use the Medical Board of California’s list of “approved” and “ disapproved” schools as its main guide in deciding which schools should be on Arkansas’ disapproved list.

Arkansas’ list includes schools that either aren’t recognized by California or that are on that state’s disapproved list. Several other states also use California’s list as a guide, including Mississippi, Vermont, Alaska and New Mexico.

At the June meeting, Dr. Trent P. Pierce, chairman of the Arkansas board — who is recovering from injuries suffered in a bomb blast in the driveway of his West Memphis home Feb. 4. — said most states don’t have the resources to review foreign medical schools themselves.

“California is the only state that does its own site reviews of medical schools, and its list in many cases is the gold standard for which schools [state medical boards] will allow and not allow,” he said at the meeting.

The lawsuit argues the board violated its own rules by disapproving the university without conducting its own investigation, or relying on any investigation by a sister state medical board.

“They have no basis to say we’re disreputable,” Sclafani said. “They don’t know anything about us. They haven’t done any site visits, they haven’t asked us for any information.”

American University of Antigua was founded in 2004 by a group of American doctors and medical professionals, according to the lawsuit. It was then sold to Manipal University, a privately owned university in India.

It has no connection to American University in Washington, D.C.

The medical school hasn’t undergone the approval process for California, and isn’t on its approved or disapproved list, Sclafani said. The university was approved by New York’s medical board after undergoing an extensive review process and plans to apply for approval in Florida and California, he said.
__________________
ain CA approval.

[joe soap]

...at last ...someone has the steel to take on a state med board adopting a crappy list. I mean seriously how can some of these 3rd world med schools (Zimbabwe, Iraq for eg) be better than MUA, AUA or SMU, some of these places you can almost buy a degree for a couple dollars and a donkey/cow/ugly sibling. I mean ...how moronic if you look at it from the outside in, ......you can work as a Doctor in one state (ie NY which says your school is cool), but then you drive/fly across the state border and another state says "nah, sorry you aint cool no more". Then the Fed says...sure you passed all the requisite exams, just like your US trained colleagues, sure you can work as a Doc, but only in our facilities. I once tried to explain this to someone from overseas and they looked at me like I was nuts. Is'nt a Doc ...a Doc? What makes one Doc legit in one state, but an idiot in another. What a joke.... If you pass a National Exam system (ie USMLE) then you should be able to work as a Doc anywhere in the states. Lets not even talk about the states that allow you to work as a Resident, but then get all Holy about giving you a permanent license. Crazy stuff.....well done AUA! C'mon MUA!

[PediDoc2013]

Schults Law Firm
200 W Capitol Avenue Suite 1600
Little Rock, Arkansas 72201-3637
Phone: 501-375-2301
Fax: 501-375-6861

Leonard Albert Sclafani (attorney)
18 E 41st St Ste 1500
New York, NY 10017
212-696-9880

[stateofequilibrium]

...at last ...someone has the steel to take on a state med board adopting a crappy list. I mean seriously how can some of these 3rd world med schools (Zimbabwe, Iraq for eg) be better than MUA, AUA or SMU, some of these places you can almost buy a degree for a couple dollars and a donkey/cow/ugly sibling. I mean ...how moronic if you look at it from the outside in, ......you can work as a Doctor in one state (ie NY which says your school is cool), but then you drive/fly across the state border and another state says "nah, sorry you aint cool no more". Then the Fed says...sure you passed all the requisite exams, just like your US trained colleagues, sure you can work as a Doc, but only in our facilities. I once tried to explain this to someone from overseas and they looked at me like I was nuts. Is'nt a Doc ...a Doc? What makes one Doc legit in one state, but an idiot in another. What a joke.... If you pass a National Exam system (ie USMLE) then you should be able to work as a Doc anywhere in the states. Lets not even talk about the states that allow you to work as a Resident, but then get all Holy about giving you a permanent license. Crazy stuff.....well done AUA! C'mon MUA!

Yes, in essence a lot of it is I think politics. How are you going to bar a national/state run school from a sovereign country?

But in reply to the rest of your post, then why have medical school at all if all we need are the USMLE? Why not just go to Kaplan boot camp or something for Step 1, 2CS and CK and call yourself a doctor?

[tidobuy]

I agree with the support, I think we need to be better rep. by the school and have there full support

[joe soap]

Yes, in essence a lot of it is I think politics. How are you going to bar a national/state run school from a sovereign country?

But in reply to the rest of your post, then why have medical school at all if all we need are the USMLE? Why not just go to Kaplan boot camp or something for Step 1, 2CS and CK and call yourself a doctor?

C'mon be real....if one state (or many, many states and most western countries) plus the federal govt. says you are a Doctor, how are you not a Doc all of a sudden in another...that's my point. Surely no-one believes you only need a kaplan boot camp to pass all the boards. Most Western countries expect your school to be WHO listed and you to pass their boards. I have seen some of these 3rd world "med schools" ...trust me they dont train their students better than the carib.

[Arkie, M.D.]

C'mon be real....if one state (or many, many states and most western countries) plus the federal govt. says you are a Doctor, how are you not a Doc all of a sudden in another...that's my point. Surely no-one believes you only need a kaplan boot camp to pass all the boards. Most Western countries expect your school to be WHO listed and you to pass their boards. I have seen some of these 3rd world "med schools" ...trust me they dont train their students better than the carib.

Not to mention our clinical training in teaching hospitals in the United States. This would clearly set us apart from someone who took a "kaplan boot camp"...wouldn't you say?

[stateofequilibrium]

C'mon be real....if one state (or many, many states and most western countries) plus the federal govt. says you are a Doctor, how are you not a Doc all of a sudden in another...that's my point. Surely no-one believes you only need a kaplan boot camp to pass all the boards. Most Western countries expect your school to be WHO listed and you to pass their boards. I have seen some of these 3rd world "med schools" ...trust me they dont train their students better than the carib.

As I said, there's certainly a good deal of politics involved in the process. A state that will reject a national school's credentials better have a lot of balls. And I'm not pointing out MUA or anyone else in particular. But what's wrong with having a little standard in checking for-profit schools, some of which are little more than fly-by night schools?

And yes, you CAN pass the boards just by memorizing Kaplan back and front.

[joe soap]

[QUOTE=stateofequilibrium;1086155]As I said, there's certainly a good deal of politics involved in the process. A state that will reject a national school's credentials better have a lot of balls. And I'm not pointing out MUA or anyone else in particular. But what's wrong with having a little standard in checking for-profit schools, some of which are little more than fly-by night schools? [QUOTE]

I agree, nothing wrong with inspecting schools, NY approved us, be reminded only 7 carib schools are approved by them including MUA, SMU, AUA, AUC, SABA, ROSS and SGU. I guess some people will now say that means nothing, I'm sure NY thinks that it means something as do the schools that applied. Will be interesting to see what happens with this lawsuit nonetheless.

[Graig]

As I said, there's certainly a good deal of politics involved in the process. A state that will reject a national school's credentials better have a lot of balls. And I'm not pointing out MUA or anyone else in particular. But what's wrong with having a little standard in checking for-profit schools, some of which are little more than fly-by night schools?

And yes, you CAN pass the boards just by memorizing Kaplan back and front.

That is the most senseless argument I've ever heard. Most states require that you be ECFMG certified and pass the USMLE, and the requirements to obtain or accomplish those two things should certainly be enough. Those two things ensure that you have the requisite knowledge to begin residency training as a physician, and for states to stand in the road of that and discriminate between those who learned that requisite knowledge in Philadelphia vs. Nevis or Anguilla or what have you is arrogant and presumptuous. If I learn medical knowledge, the basic sciences material, in a classroom or sitting at home on my couch it is none of California's f-ing business. The assumption that being in a classroom allows the professors to see you and get to know you and judge your character better is crap, that rarely happens even for those who attend classes. God knows it doesn't happen at MD and DO schools in the states where people don't even attend classes. That stuff will happen possibly, possibly, in clinicals, though probably not even there.
Point is, these people are being arbitrary in their decision of which schools are producing apt students, or those that are comparable to US grads. The objective tests are the only way to adequately compare, and if you can pass those then that should be the yard stick. These extra hoops to jump through are being placed by doctors, a notoriously narcissistic and obsessive group of people, who support their egos by manufacturing standards that demonstrate their superiority over other people. They like to think that they are in an exclusive group and should have rights and privileges above others regardless of objective evidence to the contrary (USMLE scores). Its silly, and such discrimination should be recognized as illegal unless evidence is presented that IMGs perform worse than US doctors. The truth is that even though IMGs tend to have lower scores on the USMLE, they still don't commit more malpractice than US docs:
The Quality of Care of International Medical Graduates: How does it Compare to that of U.S. Medical Graduates? -- Mick and Comfort 54 (4): 379 -- Medical Care Research and Review