Healthcare is a business, and our lives are the cost
For most, the Caribbean reminds people of summer vacation. Sunny beaches, crystal blue waters, white sands, swimsuits, tanning, or pretty cocktails come to mind. However, for others, the Caribbean is a desperate last attempt to get into a medical school.
In 2016 to 2017, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, 53,042 applicants submitted a total of 830,016 applications to U.S. medical schools, averaging about 16 applications per student. Only 21,030 were matriculated. That leaves 32,012 aspiring doctors without acceptance into American medical schools. While some head towards research or nursing school, others look into Caribbean medical schools.
Amongst the medical community, Caribbean medical schools are known as scams that prey on students grasping at straws, who are willing to pay enormous amounts of money. Most have only been established in recent years by businesses who see medical school rejects as a way to fill up their bank accounts. Because these schools accept students with lower GPAs and low MCAT scores, if they even require them at all, students are lured in by false promises that a Caribbean medical school degree will help them become doctors. In addition, the Caribbean schools have higher tuition and larger class sizes than American medical schools, which means that these schools make more money off of more students. Most students are pushed into dropping out within the first two semesters by overcrowding, ridiculously high academic standards, bad professors, and/or emotional burnout. The lucky few who manage to graduate often up with a useless piece of paper worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, as most Caribbean medical school alumni are unable to obtain a residency.
A tragic example is Michael Uva. After graduating from St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada, Uva failed to find a residency two-times. Without a residency, doctors, despite having medical degrees, cannot see patients, and must seek further training (costing more time and money) to work as nurses or medical assistants. Uva is now a director at Quadrant Health Strategies, Inc., where he trains new staff and at times even draws blood, with a debt of $400,000 from medical school. Every year, a lack of residency spots leaves countless doctors without a shot (pun intended) at actually treating patients.
Still, officials of the Caribbean medical schools defend their institutions, claiming that their universities supply doctors at a time when doctors are most needed (using U.S. census data, the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts a deficiency of 130,000 doctors in the U.S. by 2025). In addition, the officials say that their graduates often head into primary and family care practice, rather than higher-paying specialities like surgery. In recent years, Caribbean medical schools, such as Ross University School of Medicine in Dominica and American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine, both owned by Adtalem Global Education, have fought back their negative image by publishing editorials to spread awareness of schools and hiring public relations giant Edelman to market towards vulnerable students who would risk anything to follow their “destined” path to become a doctor.
Their attempts have backfired as last year, Adtalem Global Education settled a lawsuit with the Federal Trade Commission for $100 million to pay back students who were seduced into its Caribbean medical school Devry University with false advertising claims such as alumni having jobs within 6 months of graduation (which has been in advertisements since 2008) and that graduates had 15% higher salaries than graduates of other universities (a statement that’s been circulating since 2013). In an ironic twist, this week, former Devry associate dean Julian Schmoke was hired to lead the U.S. Department of Education’s enforcement unit, where he will investigate and seek legal action against fraudulent and illegal activities of higher education institutions.
This healthcare crisis affects all of us. Because of a lack of residency spots, we lose potential doctors every year-this year, we lost over 30,000, not including those who got into international medical schools. The millions in federal financial aid to medical students becomes our nightmare when medical students are unable to pay back their debts. As students are unable to pay back their debts, strict repayment agreements make taxpayers reimburse the debts, while wallets of for-profit medical schools become more stuffed with federal loan and grant money.
Go up and ask anyone if life is defined by money. Pretty much everyone with decent morals will adamantly say it’s definitely not. So why is healthcare run by money?
