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PaperclipPerfector  9d ago (text post)   30223 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 9, 2024

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Do these people want to come? I'm not sure they do.

I would be interested to hear @self_made_human respond to this, if willing.

Doctors from the Anglosphere?

Yes. At least some parts of it.

For example, British doctors are massively disgruntled, and a significant portion of them are trying to leave the country, though as always, the majority of people anywhere don't really want to emigrate. When Brits run, it's usually easier to go to Australia or New Zealand, where wages are markedly higher, work life balance is better, and their credentials are recognized as equivalent with little faffing around. Some opt for Canada.

Aus/NZ doctors are largely content, and only a small number want to move, and when they do the US is their goal most of the time.

If licensing regimes like the USMLE were relaxed for these specific countries, I doubt you wouldn't see a 2-5x efflux, comparable to the boost in salary they'd see, even if the working hours are worse.

Hell, I'd go if I could, I opted for the UK because I didn't have a better choice for long and painful reasons. Depending on how the job market looks in 3-6 years and if the barriers go, I could well be tempted in the future.

I'd say doctors from these countries are competent, especially native ones, I've certainly been nothing but impressed. They make do with shit wages and a QOL that is worse in many ways because of the UK being a stagnant country, but they're sticking around both because of inertia and because the US isn't easy to go to. They're seeing their own wages stagnate, and face stiff competition from international medical graduates (like yours truly, I have to look out for my own interests), training is unnecessarily long and painful, and many don't need more than a nudge to reconsider.

Thanks! I guess for context I considered you as "part of the Anglosphere", although there are different degrees of centrality to that concept. I remember you had a couple (interesting, IMHO) posts a while back about how difficult the US regime would have made transferring your education credentials.

I'd imagine most people here would consider the "Anglosphere" to be the Commonwealth countries plus the US, I doubt India would come to mind for them. While we have a gazillion English speakers, it's not strictly the language of the majority! I would hope that I qualify for honorary membership nonetheless haha.

I'm uniquely screwed when it comes to practising in the US, I won't elaborate since you seem to recall my moaning before, but even in an ideal world, I'd be looking at the USMLE and 3 years of residency. I haven't heard of anyone actually getting those requirements waived if they're a credentialed specialist elsewhere, but that could be my ignorance as opposed to me denying @Throwaway05 's claims. It's not a formalized route at any rate.

I suspect what's happening is that in general you have to redo residency but they keep it open as a possibility to get things waived in order to potentially steal somebody important. That resolves the tension between the anecdote (which I agree with) and the language on the website.

IF the US wanted to poach British doctors, you could get about half of them (including some of the ones who are currently heading to Australia). Please don't. I love my family, and several of them are dependent on healthcare to stay alive.

Same! When I see this online it's mostly people bitching about the U.S. being terrible but I'm sure that's not representative of how people actually feel.

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