U.K. Bans IMGs from Post Graduate Training

After United Kingdom instituted a new medical education system in 2005, mismanagement resulted in two graduating batches of medical students applying for one year of post-graduate house officer training positions resulting in a big excess of applicants to positions ratio. For any country is natural to first provide training opportunities for its own candidates than outside nationals and that's what U.K. did.

"In last year's recruitment process, there were nearly 28,000 applicants for about 15,500 training places in England. The forecast for 2008 is that competition will be even higher, with three applicants for every post. More than half of applicants are likely to have trained outside the UK and Europe"
"The new rules take effect from 29 February, but will not have an impact on recruitment until 2009."

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Note:
1. IMGs already working with the NHS will NOT be affected, this applies for new candidates seeking house office positions.
2. Non-training positions will still be open to IMGs (I need to find out qualifications needed for that )


So....more IMG applicants to the USMLE applicant pool ? ;-)

For the 2007 NRMP Residency match, the Number of IMGs who applied through ERAS was 16,731 (Source AAMC-ERAS Website) , competing with 21,351 U.S. medical graduate ERAS applicants for a total of 21,845 PGY1 positions...


Could the same IMG-ban happen in the United States ? It might - but probably not anytime soon, because as long as U.S. primary care physician salaries do not reach comparable levels to those of the specialists, American medical grads will continue to choose the higher paying specialist fields making it necessary to depend on IMGs especially for primary care specialties. However these are the reasons why the IMG dependence may reduce in the future:

1. The enrollment of Americans in medical schools has been steadily going up as IT and engineering fields lost job-security
2. Physician Assistants, Nurse Practitioners are filling up gaps in areas where physicians are in short supply
3. USA is moving slowly but surely into the digital phase with insurance companies beginning to pay physicians for online follow-ups, which allows doctors to see more patients
4. Medicare is a major source of funding for residency / fellowship programs - constant budget cuts in Medicare might reduce number of residency slots throughout the country


Also Read:

- Hospital Consultant Salaries in United Kingdom

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