Medical but NOT MedFet | Foreign doctors 2/2

Views: 965 Created: 2015.10.27

First post

Does anyone else notice the difference in demeanor with foreign docs? I feel that they are more blunt. When I was 18 I went to the ER for severe constipation. It was a shitty (no pun intended) state hospital so maybe that had something to do with it, but the attending physician was a Nigerian male who had to be at least 60. He was different than any other doctor I had seen...he was short in asking me questions, and instead of referring to my product as "stool" he called it feces. He didn't seem very understanding to my discomfort at discussing my issue. He asked me questions like how much do I have to strain, what does it look like and when I paused at answering he seemed to get impatient.

I made the mistake of telling him that I had some vaginal discharge when I was having a difficult BM, so he decided to do an exam. When he came back with female nurse and the tools on the tray, I told him that my discharge wasn't that bad and said something along the lines of can we just skip this, but he just made some sort of annoying grunt noise. The nurse told me it was necessary because if I was having discharge it could be an infection and did I have any questions, etc. She was actually very nice to me. The doctor was very rough; he pulled on my pubes too hard (I had an exceptionally large amount of hair at the time) and during the rectal exam his finger in my butthole hurt because of all the poop and I started to cry but he just seemed annoyed with me. Throughout the entire exam he just made "hmm" type of noises, and muttered some things to the nurse which she typed in the computer.

I've often wondered if his behavior was appropriate...are all foreign doctors like this, was it the status of the hospital, was he an unethical doctor or both?

jimmyt44

I used to hate calling on V.A. docs. We called the V.A. the United Nations, as all docs were from other countries. In trying to sell Colace caps (a stool softener), we couldn't get the Doc to understand what the product did. I took in a handful of peanuts and a jar of peanut butter, with the Colace caps. and you could see the light go on in the Doc's head and he was a psychiatrist. That's the one specialty that needs a good understanding of English to understand emotional problems that veterans had.

Sha

Mashie, FYI. the Indian doctor is Dr. Sidhu is a Sikh. They have to wear a turban all the time. Its in their scriptures.

rain

Okay, here goes. Having managed a large subspecialty clinic plus a very large Kaiser clinic and having been involved in recruiting, U.S. trained physicians have the resources to be better trained than their foreign counterparts. Please note, not all U.S. physicians take advantage of the best resources e.g. Harvard, Princeton, New York, Pennsylvania, to name a few. A good residency does not make up for it but does add to the training. There is nothing in the world that matches up to a good U.S. top of the line Medical School. That says nothing about personality, or, bedside manner. However, in terms of specialists, I would take training over bedside manner any day. Maybe that is because I have grown accustomed to dealing with egotistical, arrogant, ponderosa peni's, Still, medical school and residency are the basis of good medicine.

SwitchableSusie

. . . . not all U.S. physicians take advantage of the best resources e.g. Harvard, Princeton, New York, Pennsylvania, to name a few. . . . .

The guys I trained with at Columbia P&S weren't too shabby either.

agracier

Moderator

agracier

Moderator

Please note, not all U.S. physicians take advantage of the best resources e.g. Harvard, Princeton, New York, Pennsylvania, to name a few. A good residency does not make up for it but does add to the training. There is nothing in the world that matches up to a good U.S. top of the line Medical School.

Isn't it maybe a question of not all (candidate) US physicians being able to afford the tuition at these places? It is not as if they are government funded. From what I know it takes not only talent and scholastic achievement to gain entrance, but also lots of money to pay for tuition (or outrageously rated student loans) and with some luck a family connection to work as legacy.

What is the use of having a small cadre of well trained physicians if only a few can graduate per year? And not to mention that patients cannot afterwards afford their rates? It's not like health care, let alone top notch health care is available to everyone in the US.