this is where you are quite wrong....come up here to the NY/NJ area, i assure you that spanish is not the only language here...go to elmhirst near jackson heights- bengali is the pop you will see mostly. Even in the south other languages are an issue. Go to Charity in NO- vietnamese is big there...come to paterson...much of the pop is middle eastern- arabic is very helpful here!

and again, i really don't think it is that big a problem per se (issue yes), in major areas (and even smaller places), spanish is well addressed..there are many people who do speak spanish, there are language lines, all paperwork is in spanish as well as english, etc...this is NOT the case for many of the other languages...do these pts not deserve the same level of comprehension??

you can't go by just the arguement that well. MORE people speak spanish...then that would make the arguement that, well, even MORE people speak english, so everything should just be in english valid.

and on the basis of being of the culture makes you the best doctor for this segment of society if you were immersed in it, is rubbish...wholesale...does this mean that you as a doctor trained in mexico are only qualified to treat mexicans?? or that an indian educated doctor is the best for the indian pop in the US? Of course not...cultural competency does not come from only immersion...it comes from a willingness and openness to learn AND respect the cultural mores of another. It comes from the ablity to be empathetic to all your patients...not just because you spent time in that culture.

will make you a better doctor? of course... there is value in it, but like it has been said before...just the fact that you went to school in another culture and language will not automatically make you the better candidiate for a residency...

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Oh, Please. Look at the numbers. You can spend the rest of your life learning the 90 to 1000 languages spoken in America or you can practice medicine. Oh, and one other language. Spanish.

TOP THREE LANGUAGES
US 82% English
US 12% Spanish
US 0.77% Chinese

Learning the first two covers 92% of the population.

And there are areas where Spanish gets into the 30% 40% but this happens by supplanting most other languages first and part of the english population. So don't expect to find a decent Chinatown in Miami.

All others above 0.2%
1,643,838 0.63% French (incl. Patois, Cajun)1,383,442 0.53% German1,224,241 0.47% Tagalog1,009,627 0.38% Vietnamese1,008,370 0.38% Italian894,063 0.34% Korean706,242 0.27% Russian667,414 0.25% Polish614,582 0.23% Arabic564,630 0.22% Portuguese or Portuguese Creole

Sorry your language doesn't even hit the scale.

Oh and this doesn't mean that I would turn away someone who only speaks Tagalog or any other minimally spoken language.

I would treat this 8% of the population as most doctors have to treat 22% to 40% of the populations depending on location.

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1st 82 +12 = 94

and this isn't an issue of whose language is better represented, but whether or not spanish is the ONLY (your words) language of issue in the US...its not, even you showed THAT, just by listing all the other one in your post...

and based on your own argument, spanish only represents 12% of the population, so why even bother??? English alone nets me 82% of the general pop...but see...like you also said, there are places where that population isn't just "12%" ...so if you are in "chinatown" in NY, in SF, guess what?? the % is more than 0.77%...

http://www.osc.state.ny.us/osdc/rpt4-2007flushing.pdf

check it out --44% are Asian, only 18.5 % spanish speaking...so in flushing at least, you are better off speakin mandarin instead of spanish...

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Roks, I'm sure you've learned by now that sometimes you talk to people and you may as well be talking to a brick wall...if they don't want to hear then they're not going to hear it.

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What are your chances for SGU, you ask?? Check it out here.

Many on here are forgetting that a certain % of uag students did not attend uag bc of the span. Even before the FPP was discontinued by the ama there was a significant number of transfers to other schools in 4th semester. These were the students who really did not come to uag for that reason, they came bc they could not get into US schools and felt guad was also on the west cost were many of the students resided.

Rokshana, thanks for catching my math mistake. You are right 94% is a much better number for my side. Are you seeing your math mistake?

Flushing is a single area small one by square mileage. Flushing is home to large Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, Filipino, Indian, Hispanic, and African American communities. It is a small part of queens. Neither of us would have a chance of working there if we were competing for a spot with someone who spoke Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean or any of the other related languages.

However, I do have some experience with Korean. Kam Saham nida. Lived two summers in Seoul. Still they wouldn't let me speak Korean because everyone wanted to practice their English. I would study an asian language seriously if I lived in that area or went to practice near there.

Oh, did you not see that you are making my point.

I will go slowly. To practice in an area like Flushing and not speak the major languages is reckless. The major language in Flushing is New Yorkian, by my reckoning, and secondly "Asian" by your reckoning. But you know and I know that "Asian" is not a language. Half of China does not understand the other half. That is why you said Madarin and not Chinese. Chinese is not a language it is an ethnicity.

In a slightly lager area. Let's say the USofA. Spanish is the only language of issue. We already have a commenwealth whose first language is Spanish and several major cities where spanish curriculums have to be taught in schools. This is not a small community but most of a country.

Financially, 18% of a budget out of control is unacceptable. Petty cash should be around .2%. I hope you read that even 18.5% of Flushing is hispanic.

Still we are not talking about something petty. We are talking about lives.

If I have a prescription that works, as you corrected me, in 94% of my patients I have to tell them there is a chance it won't work. If it only works in 82% of my patients we should have someone working on a better prescription.

Don't worry we are down here slogging it out at UAG.

Please if you end up working in Flushing start learning the major Asian language spoken there.

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hi everyone
i just got the link to this website by accident and find it a useful website but i know nothing about how it works, i dont know how to start a new post! so im just ganna ask my question in the middle of this argument!! sorry but i really need your help.. i am planing to apply to carrebian med schools, but i have no clue which ones are better.. i am wondering if you guys know which ones i should apply to, please help me, thanksss

Rokshana went to a very good carribean school. There are many. She will gladly supply us with a list of the best most common.

When we are not arguing about minutia, we are here to help and offer what information we can.

Feel free to cut into any thread and ask what it is really about.

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so only you can quote ancedotal events and somehow they are true for everything??

flushing maybe small, but the population is large, so its not representative of say only 15 people (which by your emphasis of 1 sq mile, makes that seem)...

and I speak the major language...english (so by your reckoning, i'm good!).

and since i'm going to georgia, i'm good, cuz i speak southern!

on a serious note though...are you really?slogging it out down there? you have pointedly avoided answering some questions that have been recently put to this forum...scott pointed out that, by UAGs own stats, there has been a consistant decline in the number of residency spots secured by UAG grads in the US? why is that?? Or are you gonna tell me that the class size has so decreased in the last few years that 41 represents a majority of the graduating class? or that what? 80% of your graduating class prematches (since the nrmp match is easily disclosed if UAG purchases the match list- like practically every offshore school does these days). So either UAG is experiencing an exponetially decrease in enrollment or UAG grads are simply no longer as competitive a residency applicant...

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try to get as much info from value md as u can, go on to SGU, Ross, and AUC valuemd threads first considering these schools are the largest and offer federal loans. Also, attend the open houses, these can give u a wealth of information. If u really want to be maticulous, i would also take a trip to these islands and tour the campus and atmosphere on the island. I have many friends who went to ross and most of them would not have attended if they could go back in time