veritas

i agree with you, except, in reality, they do select people the way i described. i was on the selection/academic board once and the discussions that went on about RNs becoming MDs were not welcoming at all. most RNs are against RNs going over to MDs and will try to create extra hurdles and obstacles for RNs trying to go to MDs. MDs don't particularly care if an RN comes over. so in reality, the problem doesn't really lie with the medical faculty but with the nursing faculty. there is a dynamic going on, and it's not a simple static thing.

i agree about the difficulty in getting residency if you did an oceania degree.... i mean any off shore degree will be difficult in getting you a residency anyway... plus oceania is dodgy... the 3 year program i mentioned is actually happening, with real people in it and has been on for some years. and they have no issues with residencies. it is on their site, but you have to know exactly what you are looking for. for obvious reasons, this program is a bit hush hush because they don't want a lot of people to suddenly abandon nursing and hop over to MD, making the nursing crisis worse than it is... are you interested in becoming an MD? i notice u post a lot about this topic everywhere... since you r a PA, how is the RN to MD program applicable to you?

:balloons: thank you kindly for the explanation. i am well aware of historical connotations, traditions, etc... but these days, it's the new century, the new era, etc etc.... i have never heard anyone call a surgeon "Mr"... and i think if i did, people would be confused and the surgeon would actually be upset. but i understand where it all comes from...

i would hardly be making up things that i post. i am aware that what i post is easily cross-checked. i personally triple check things i post before i post them. to name one of the schools offering a 3 year short cut med degree, is the school of medicine at university of missouri. u may skip year 1 if they deem u suitable.

i meant becoz in US you have some programs which shave off 1 year from the 4 year post-grad program, essentially making it 3 years post grad for a med degree. there is no such thing in uk or oz or most 1st world countries. in oz and uk, even after u do a degree, no matter what it is or how much experience you have, u end up in the bottom with the rest, without exemptions. and in some countries, even if u have a prior degree, u still have to do the 8 years. so US is already providing the shortest recognised program in the world.

that's in USA. what i said is actually happening in Oz. wow, USA has a med school admission rate of 44% to 50%? amazing. must be real easy to get into med schools in USA. in Oz, it's 20%. and in many places in the world, the program is still 8 years. in uk, it is usually 5 or 6 years.

to solve the shortage of doc problem, NPs should be given more power/autonomy. they can't just simply let in more students. plus it costs much more to train a doc than a nurse. they have started to let in more med places in recent years. many programs have expanded places by about 100 to 200 extra spots. they have to maintain the bottleneck in med. otherwise, it could become like brazil, where doctors and nurses are paid the same. who wants to slog to become a doc then if they get paid the same as nurses? and who will work as hard? where will the standard and quality go?

the med system is eliteist. and they are not starving for students. even with the mcat and interviews and high GPA required, there is still about 25 to 50 applicants per 1 med school place. so in fact, only about 20% of people who apply to med school can get in. the med program has already down sized a lot to accommodate the "shortage" of docs. it used to be 8 years, and got reduced to 6 years and now you can do it in 3 or 4 years. if it gets anymore cut down, i m not sure how people will fit in all they need to learn. a nursing degree is 3 or 4 years. if med is cut any less than nursing, how will the docs fit all they need to learn into that time? there is A LOT more to learn in med than in nursing! as it is, med students are struggling to fit in everything they need to know in the current 3 or 4 years program. and in the end, they are not as confident as they could be if the program was longer.

i wanted to donate my eggs... but people who haven't had kids are not allowed to donate their eggs....

" The Indian culture has prescribed RITUALS AND RITES OF PASSAGE at various phases of an infant's development. When the child has lived for a full lunar phase (28 days), this is celebrated by tying a protective yantra or blessed charm (tali) around the child's waist with a string which may be changed to a gold chain after six months." This is a general Hindu/Vedic/Asian Indian thing. Not necessarily anything to do with their caste/class.

anyone who wants to do MD should join the bottom of the pile and start new. seriously people, do you want to go to a doctor who did not pass mcat or interviews? do you want a doctor who took shortcuts to get into med school? i don't think so! the mcat and interviews and classes are there for extremely good reasons. those schools advertised as no mcat required, blarblarblar are not going to get you the residency required in any country, and no residency = no job = not md = back to wherever you came from or started from. think about it! :monkeydance:

in australia and USA, there are actually a lot of schools offering mental health scholarships.

i think this patient must be very ignorant or just choosing to see what he wants to see. i don't think nurses as a population are predisposed to or generally fat! it's got nothing to do with nursing. there's more fat people who are not nurses than there are nurses who are fat! :monkeydance:

i totally agree! we all choose our own decisions in life and we lead our own lives. not someone else's idea of what ideal is. as long as we are doing our jobs in the standards required and as long as we are safe and not hurting anyone, we should all be allowed to make our own choices, and not be guilted, bullied or manipulated by others into their perception of ideal. no one is perfect and looks are always deceiving. we all have our own battles, fat or thin, and it's not right for one to judge the other as being better or worse. we are all different people and our diversity should be celebrated. people come in different shapes and sizes and have little reflection on their character or abilities. surely nurses are not expected to become clones of each other, in one skinny size? people place too much emphasis on looks and appearances. by accepting that, we are perpetuating it. do what is good and right. not what is superficial and biased. :monkeydance:

in lay man terms, all doctors are called doctors! its confusing with the mr and doc differentiation. a surgeon has to be a doc before he becomes a sugeon anyway. so all surgeons and physicians get the MBBS first, which is equivalent to the MD in USA. MBBS is a british thing which british-colonised countries adopted. it's weird calling a surgeon mr.... sounds like he is not a doctor?