Why ?? One-third of McGill medical grads fail Quebec exams

[BrookH]

2005/07/21 not so recent but disturbing

 

One-third of McGill medical grads fail Quebec exams

 

McGill University is encouraging its new family medicine graduates to retake provincial licensing exams after 36 per cent of them failed the tests this year.

Officials at the university said they have no idea why 14 of their 39 family medicine residents failed the exam. The usual failure rate among graduates of Quebec's four medical schools is between zero and 10 per cent.

 

"They're essentially licensed to work, to practise medicine, everywhere in Canada except Quebec," said Martin Bernier, president of the Federation of Medical Residents of Quebec.

 

McGill medical resident Ashwin Sairam said he passed both Canada-wide exams needed to work as a family doctor outside of Quebec. Sairam had two jobs lined up in Quebec before he found out he had failed the provincial exam.

 

"My jaw just dropped to the floor," he recalled. Sairam has sent letters of regret to the employers in Quebec and is getting a licence for Ontario. He plans to commute to border towns to work.

 

 

Sairam's wife, Dr. Anjana Srinivasan, passed the same exam two years ago, when all medical school residents in the province had a high success rate. This year's failure rate at the University of Montreal was two per cent.

 

"The discrepancies at the English university worries me a bit," said Srinivasan. "I'm not sure if that has to do with training issues, but it definitely makes me think there's more than just the fact the residents themselves weren't trained or weren't prepared."

 

Either there were problems with the exam or with the quality of training at McGill, although Bernier of the medical residents group said he doubts the latter possibility. He also doesn't suspect there was any language barrier.

 

 

Leaving Quebec

 

McGill has launched an investigation to find out why so many of its residents failed.

 

"This particular cohort is as strong as any other," said Sylvain-Jacques Desjardins, a spokesperson for McGill. "It's just this particular case, it was an anomaly."

 

Dr. Robert Ouellet, head of the Quebec Medical Association, said he's surprised a school of McGill's reputation had such a high failure rate. He's concerned the residents will leave the province.

 

"Quebec needs those doctors to stay here," said Ouellet. "But there's a problem, because they're good enough to practise in Ontario and B.C. but they' re not good enough to practise in Quebec. It's kind of nonsense."

 

McGill said it will offer support to all residents who wish to retake their exams in the fall. So far, only two have said they will.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2005/07/21/McGill-failures050721.html

[trustwomen]

Fluke. Hasn't happened since then. Dunno why that happened, though to be honest the McGill family med program is not competitive. They always had so many empty spots after the match that they would rank anyone with a pulse who didn't seem like a sociopath. The program, from what I understand, is being overhauled and made more stringent, and last year they didn't have empty spots at second round.