Evaluating Graduates of Foreign Medical Schools

Research that will be published today in the journal Health Affairs suggests that graduates of foreign medical schools perform as well as graduates of medical schools in the United States, as measured by mortality rates for patients with a common set of conditions. The findings could be significant given a growing debate over the quality of medical care provided by doctors who were educated outside the United States -- a group that makes up nearly 25 percent of physicians in the United States. At the same time, however, the study found that the performance of foreign medical graduates who were U.S. citizens lagged the performance of other graduates, the kind of figure that could add to scrutiny of colleges outside the United States that serve many American students.