| Coming soon to a nationalized health care system near you. |
| The proportion of international medical graduates in the U.S. today is about 25%... |
The full extent of the danger presented by foreign doctors working in the health service can be revealed.
| Not sure how it is in the UK, but in the U.S. the few studies that have been done show that there is no difference in the overall quality of care delivered by international medical graduates as opposed to American graduates. |
The revelations will add to concerns that NHS patients are not adequately protected from health professionals from countries where training is less rigorous than in the UK, and from those who are unfamiliar with basic medical practices in this country.
The figures, disclosed for the first time and obtained by The Sunday Telegraph using freedom of information laws, show:
In total, 669 doctors have been either struck off or suspended by the GMC over the last five years. Of those, only 249 were British (37 per cent) while 420 (63 per cent) were trained abroad -- whereas one-third of doctors on the register were trained abroad, and two-thirds in Britain.
In recent years, a series of cases have raised concerns about the competence and language skills of overseas doctors.