Your earlier comments are premised on the following notion: that students of Asian or Subcontinental background are more likely to do medicine solely because of parental pressure, than students of a European background. You are still yet to provide any compelling evidence that this is so, other than a handful of anecdotes. Anecdotes prove nothing, as for every example you give, I could give a splattering of counter-examples. It is particularly important not to rely on anecdotes whenever you make a racially inflammatory remark, because the topic is so sensitive to begin with.
I think it's worth pointing to a distinction here - there is a big difference between doing medicine partly because of parental pressure, and wholly because of parental pressure. I would suggest that probably close to 100% of medical students fit in the former category, in some way or another. It may not mean that the student's parents have insisted that they do the degree, but there are other forms of "parental pressure" - a desire to do one's parents proud, wanting to financially provide for one's parents later in life, repaying one's parents for the sacrifices they have conferred to you etc. More importantly, though, students who fit in the latter category (choose med solely because of parental pressure) do not last very long. Interestingly enough, the drop-out rate from Med school has plummeted since the introduction of the new medical curricula, suggesting that medical schools are now selecting the "right" students (i.e. ones who don't realise that med is not for them and drop out in 1st or 2nd year) - and guess what, the composition of Asians and Subcontinentals has not appreciably changed.
This is a different topic - I assume the Asians/Subcontinentals you were referring to earlier were Australian citizens. Now you're discussing foreign-trained doctors and foreign students, which is another matter. This phenomenon is driven, of course, by a chronic shortage of local doctors, as well as our universities' increasing dependence on private, foreign money, which has deep socioeconomic underpinnings. If this fact irritates you, I'm afraid you have much bigger fish to go fry than a few foreign-trained Muslim doctors holed up in Albury - try taking aim at the world capitalist system instead. Instead of attacking the source of the problem, you are attacking people who are doing nothing more sinister than accepting the invitation of our government to come practise in areas of workplace shortage. Even if their quality of care is inferior to that of locally trained doctors (and I challenge you to provide non-anecdotal evidence of this), it is a slam dunk case that they are better than having no doctors AT ALL in some of these areas, which is the alternative.
I am still bemused by this notion of rural people and others feeling uncomfortable with Muslim doctors. Who cares if they feel uncomfortable? Do you think white parents felt comfortable having their kids go to school with black kids once segregation ended in the deep south of America?
Again, this is a problem related to chronic underfunding and a widespread shortage of doctors in rural areas. Why direct your anger at Asians and "curries", when it's your own government that is at fault for:
a) not doing enough in the past to recruit local doctors, and
b) not screening foreign doctors well enough to ensure they meet adequate standards?
Having said that, pointing to a few anecdotes of bad foreign-trained doctors proves nothing. You'd have to do a statistical analysis to show that their error rate, mortality, morbidity etc is higher than locally trained doctors. Otherwise all you are doing is selectively pointing to examples - I could just as well point to examples of home-bred, white, Anglo-Saxon doctors messing up. Proves nothing.
It's hard to believe that your entire initial post was not directed at Asians/subcontinentals, considering it was elaborating on your initial "I hope your not curry or asian" statement.
Your denials of racism would hold more water if you had said something like, "I hope you're not doing med because your parents forced you to." Instead, you've slurred an entire ethnicity, which I take very personally, since I know countless Asians and "curries" who have worked very, very hard to get into medicine - some slogging through undergraduate degrees, others taking 1, 2, even 3 years off after high school to keep re-trying the UMAT.
Well you don't have to worry about English literacy when it comes to the locally bred Asian/subcontinental cohort, that's for sure. It's hard to imagine English illiterate students getting into any Australian medical school now, considering the interview process most universities require. I also have doubts about your asian anaesthecist reg anecdote - how could someone who barely speaks English pass all his written exams, OSCEs and board certificates?
The point about undergrad vs postgrad med, and motivation to do med, is an interesting one. That's how they do it in the United States, all postgrad. There are several downsides though - for one, postgrad med courses are denser and typically less thorough (especially for students whose undergrad degree was non-science related) since they are 1 or 2 years shorter. 1 or 2 years longer to graduate may not seem like much, but it can make a big difference for women, especially women who start university a bit later in life, and want to have a family etc. I'm not convinced that there aren't better ways to sort out the wheat from the chuff so to speak.
Your earlier comments are premised on the following notion: that students of Asian or Subcontinental background are more likely to do medicine solely because of parental pressure, than students of a European background. You are still yet to provide any compelling evidence that this is so, other than a handful of anecdotes. Anecdotes prove nothing, as for every example you give, I could give a splattering of counter-examples. It is particularly important not to rely on anecdotes whenever you make a racially inflammatory remark, because the topic is so sensitive to begin with.
I think it's worth pointing to a distinction here - there is a big difference between doing medicine partly because of parental pressure, and wholly because of parental pressure. I would suggest that probably close to 100% of medical students fit in the former category, in some way or another. It may not mean that the student's parents have insisted that they do the degree, but there are other forms of "parental pressure" - a desire to do one's parents proud, wanting to financially provide for one's parents later in life, repaying one's parents for the sacrifices they have conferred to you etc. More importantly, though, students who fit in the latter category (choose med solely because of parental pressure) do not last very long. Interestingly enough, the drop-out rate from Med school has plummeted since the introduction of the new medical curricula, suggesting that medical schools are now selecting the "right" students (i.e. ones who don't realise that med is not for them and drop out in 1st or 2nd year) - and guess what, the composition of Asians and Subcontinentals has not appreciably changed.
This is a different topic - I assume the Asians/Subcontinentals you were referring to earlier were Australian citizens. Now you're discussing foreign-trained doctors and foreign students, which is another matter. This phenomenon is driven, of course, by a chronic shortage of local doctors, as well as our universities' increasing dependence on private, foreign money, which has deep socioeconomic underpinnings. If this fact irritates you, I'm afraid you have much bigger fish to go fry than a few foreign-trained Muslim doctors holed up in Albury - try taking aim at the world capitalist system instead. Instead of attacking the source of the problem, you are attacking people who are doing nothing more sinister than accepting the invitation of our government to come practise in areas of workplace shortage. Even if their quality of care is inferior to that of locally trained doctors (and I challenge you to provide non-anecdotal evidence of this), it is a slam dunk case that they are better than having no doctors AT ALL in some of these areas, which is the alternative.
I am still bemused by this notion of rural people and others feeling uncomfortable with Muslim doctors. Who cares if they feel uncomfortable? Do you think white parents felt comfortable having their kids go to school with black kids once segregation ended in the deep south of America?
Again, this is a problem related to chronic underfunding and a widespread shortage of doctors in rural areas. Why direct your anger at Asians and "curries", when it's your own government that is at fault for:
a) not doing enough in the past to recruit local doctors, and
b) not screening foreign doctors well enough to ensure they meet adequate standards?
Having said that, pointing to a few anecdotes of bad foreign-trained doctors proves nothing. You'd have to do a statistical analysis to show that their error rate, mortality, morbidity etc is higher than locally trained doctors. Otherwise all you are doing is selectively pointing to examples - I could just as well point to examples of home-bred, white, Anglo-Saxon doctors messing up. Proves nothing.
It's hard to believe that your entire initial post was not directed at Asians/subcontinentals, considering it was elaborating on your initial "I hope your not curry or asian" statement.
Your denials of racism would hold more water if you had said something like, "I hope you're not doing med because your parents forced you to." Instead, you've slurred an entire ethnicity, which I take very personally, since I know countless Asians and "curries" who have worked very, very hard to get into medicine - some slogging through undergraduate degrees, others taking 1, 2, even 3 years off after high school to keep re-trying the UMAT.
Well you don't have to worry about English literacy when it comes to the locally bred Asian/subcontinental cohort, that's for sure. It's hard to imagine English illiterate students getting into any Australian medical school now, considering the interview process most universities require. I also have doubts about your asian anaesthecist reg anecdote - how could someone who barely speaks English pass all his written exams, OSCEs and board certificates?
The point about undergrad vs postgrad med, and motivation to do med, is an interesting one. That's how they do it in the United States, all postgrad. There are several downsides though - for one, postgrad med courses are denser and typically less thorough (especially for students whose undergrad degree was non-science related) since they are 1 or 2 years shorter. 1 or 2 years longer to graduate may not seem like much, but it can make a big difference for women, especially women who start university a bit later in life, and want to have a family etc. I'm not convinced that there aren't better ways to sort out the wheat from the chuff so to speak.Your earlier comments are premised on the following notion: that students of Asian or Subcontinental background are more likely to do medicine solely because of parental pressure, than students of a European background. You are still yet to provide any compelling evidence that this is so, other than a handful of anecdotes. Anecdotes prove nothing, as for every example you give, I could give a splattering of counter-examples. It is particularly important not to rely on anecdotes whenever you make a racially inflammatory remark, because the topic is so sensitive to begin with.
I think it's worth pointing to a distinction here - there is a big difference between doing medicine partly because of parental pressure, and wholly because of parental pressure. I would suggest that probably close to 100% of medical students fit in the former category, in some way or another. It may not mean that the student's parents have insisted that they do the degree, but there are other forms of "parental pressure" - a desire to do one's parents proud, wanting to financially provide for one's parents later in life, repaying one's parents for the sacrifices they have conferred to you etc. More importantly, though, students who fit in the latter category (choose med solely because of parental pressure) do not last very long. Interestingly enough, the drop-out rate from Med school has plummeted since the introduction of the new medical curricula, suggesting that medical schools are now selecting the "right" students (i.e. ones who don't realise that med is not for them and drop out in 1st or 2nd year) - and guess what, the composition of Asians and Subcontinentals has not appreciably changed.
This is a different topic - I assume the Asians/Subcontinentals you were referring to earlier were Australian citizens. Now you're discussing foreign-trained doctors and foreign students, which is another matter. This phenomenon is driven, of course, by a chronic shortage of local doctors, as well as our universities' increasing dependence on private, foreign money, which has deep socioeconomic underpinnings. If this fact irritates you, I'm afraid you have much bigger fish to go fry than a few foreign-trained Muslim doctors holed up in Albury - try taking aim at the world capitalist system instead. Instead of attacking the source of the problem, you are attacking people who are doing nothing more sinister than accepting the invitation of our government to come practise in areas of workplace shortage. Even if their quality of care is inferior to that of locally trained doctors (and I challenge you to provide non-anecdotal evidence of this), it is a slam dunk case that they are better than having no doctors AT ALL in some of these areas, which is the alternative.
I am still bemused by this notion of rural people and others feeling uncomfortable with Muslim doctors. Who cares if they feel uncomfortable? Do you think white parents felt comfortable having their kids go to school with black kids once segregation ended in the deep south of America?
Again, this is a problem related to chronic underfunding and a widespread shortage of doctors in rural areas. Why direct your anger at Asians and "curries", when it's your own government that is at fault for:
a) not doing enough in the past to recruit local doctors, and
b) not screening foreign doctors well enough to ensure they meet adequate standards?
Having said that, pointing to a few anecdotes of bad foreign-trained doctors proves nothing. You'd have to do a statistical analysis to show that their error rate, mortality, morbidity etc is higher than locally trained doctors. Otherwise all you are doing is selectively pointing to examples - I could just as well point to examples of home-bred, white, Anglo-Saxon doctors messing up. Proves nothing.
It's hard to believe that your entire initial post was not directed at Asians/subcontinentals, considering it was elaborating on your initial "I hope your not curry or asian" statement.
Your denials of racism would hold more water if you had said something like, "I hope you're not doing med because your parents forced you to." Instead, you've slurred an entire ethnicity, which I take very personally, since I know countless Asians and "curries" who have worked very, very hard to get into medicine - some slogging through undergraduate degrees, others taking 1, 2, even 3 years off after high school to keep re-trying the UMAT.
Well you don't have to worry about English literacy when it comes to the locally bred Asian/subcontinental cohort, that's for sure. It's hard to imagine English illiterate students getting into any Australian medical school now, considering the interview process most universities require. I also have doubts about your asian anaesthecist reg anecdote - how could someone who barely speaks English pass all his written exams, OSCEs and board certificates?
The point about undergrad vs postgrad med, and motivation to do med, is an interesting one. That's how they do it in the United States, all postgrad. There are several downsides though - for one, postgrad med courses are denser and typically less thorough (especially for students whose undergrad degree was non-science related) since they are 1 or 2 years shorter. 1 or 2 years longer to graduate may not seem like much, but it can make a big difference for women, especially women who start university a bit later in life, and want to have a family etc. I'm not convinced that there aren't better ways to sort out the wheat from the chuff so to speak.Your earlier comments are premised on the following notion: that students of Asian or Subcontinental background are more likely to do medicine solely because of parental pressure, than students of a European background. You are still yet to provide any compelling evidence that this is so, other than a handful of anecdotes. Anecdotes prove nothing, as for every example you give, I could give a splattering of counter-examples. It is particularly important not to rely on anecdotes whenever you make a racially inflammatory remark, because the topic is so sensitive to begin with.
I think it's worth pointing to a distinction here - there is a big difference between doing medicine partly because of parental pressure, and wholly because of parental pressure. I would suggest that probably close to 100% of medical students fit in the former category, in some way or another. It may not mean that the student's parents have insisted that they do the degree, but there are other forms of "parental pressure" - a desire to do one's parents proud, wanting to financially provide for one's parents later in life, repaying one's parents for the sacrifices they have conferred to you etc. More importantly, though, students who fit in the latter category (choose med solely because of parental pressure) do not last very long. Interestingly enough, the drop-out rate from Med school has plummeted since the introduction of the new medical curricula, suggesting that medical schools are now selecting the "right" students (i.e. ones who don't realise that med is not for them and drop out in 1st or 2nd year) - and guess what, the composition of Asians and Subcontinentals has not appreciably changed.
This is a different topic - I assume the Asians/Subcontinentals you were referring to earlier were Australian citizens. Now you're discussing foreign-trained doctors and foreign students, which is another matter. This phenomenon is driven, of course, by a chronic shortage of local doctors, as well as our universities' increasing dependence on private, foreign money, which has deep socioeconomic underpinnings. If this fact irritates you, I'm afraid you have much bigger fish to go fry than a few foreign-trained Muslim doctors holed up in Albury - try taking aim at the world capitalist system instead. Instead of attacking the source of the problem, you are attacking people who are doing nothing more sinister than accepting the invitation of our government to come practise in areas of workplace shortage. Even if their quality of care is inferior to that of locally trained doctors (and I challenge you to provide non-anecdotal evidence of this), it is a slam dunk case that they are better than having no doctors AT ALL in some of these areas, which is the alternative.
I am still bemused by this notion of rural people and others feeling uncomfortable with Muslim doctors. Who cares if they feel uncomfortable? Do you think white parents felt comfortable having their kids go to school with black kids once segregation ended in the deep south of America?
Again, this is a problem related to chronic underfunding and a widespread shortage of doctors in rural areas. Why direct your anger at Asians and "curries", when it's your own government that is at fault for:
a) not doing enough in the past to recruit local doctors, and
b) not screening foreign doctors well enough to ensure they meet adequate standards?
Having said that, pointing to a few anecdotes of bad foreign-trained doctors proves nothing. You'd have to do a statistical analysis to show that their error rate, mortality, morbidity etc is higher than locally trained doctors. Otherwise all you are doing is selectively pointing to examples - I could just as well point to examples of home-bred, white, Anglo-Saxon doctors messing up. Proves nothing.
It's hard to believe that your entire initial post was not directed at Asians/subcontinentals, considering it was elaborating on your initial "I hope your not curry or asian" statement.
Your denials of racism would hold more water if you had said something like, "I hope you're not doing med because your parents forced you to." Instead, you've slurred an entire ethnicity, which I take very personally, since I know countless Asians and "curries" who have worked very, very hard to get into medicine - some slogging through undergraduate degrees, others taking 1, 2, even 3 years off after high school to keep re-trying the UMAT.
Well you don't have to worry about English literacy when it comes to the locally bred Asian/subcontinental cohort, that's for sure. It's hard to imagine English illiterate students getting into any Australian medical school now, considering the interview process most universities require. I also have doubts about your asian anaesthecist reg anecdote - how could someone who barely speaks English pass all his written exams, OSCEs and board certificates?
The point about undergrad vs postgrad med, and motivation to do med, is an interesting one. That's how they do it in the United States, all postgrad. There are several downsides though - for one, postgrad med courses are denser and typically less thorough (especially for students whose undergrad degree was non-science related) since they are 1 or 2 years shorter. 1 or 2 years longer to graduate may not seem like much, but it can make a big difference for women, especially women who start university a bit later in life, and want to have a family etc. I'm not convinced that there aren't better ways to sort out the wheat from the chuff so to speak.Your earlier comments are premised on the following notion: that students of Asian or Subcontinental background are more likely to do medicine solely because of parental pressure, than students of a European background. You are still yet to provide any compelling evidence that this is so, other than a handful of anecdotes. Anecdotes prove nothing, as for every example you give, I could give a splattering of counter-examples. It is particularly important not to rely on anecdotes whenever you make a racially inflammatory remark, because the topic is so sensitive to begin with.
I think it's worth pointing to a distinction here - there is a big difference between doing medicine partly because of parental pressure, and wholly because of parental pressure. I would suggest that probably close to 100% of medical students fit in the former category, in some way or another. It may not mean that the student's parents have insisted that they do the degree, but there are other forms of "parental pressure" - a desire to do one's parents proud, wanting to financially provide for one's parents later in life, repaying one's parents for the sacrifices they have conferred to you etc. More importantly, though, students who fit in the latter category (choose med solely because of parental pressure) do not last very long. Interestingly enough, the drop-out rate from Med school has plummeted since the introduction of the new medical curricula, suggesting that medical schools are now selecting the "right" students (i.e. ones who don't realise that med is not for them and drop out in 1st or 2nd year) - and guess what, the composition of Asians and Subcontinentals has not appreciably changed.
This is a different topic - I assume the Asians/Subcontinentals you were referring to earlier were Australian citizens. Now you're discussing foreign-trained doctors and foreign students, which is another matter. This phenomenon is driven, of course, by a chronic shortage of local doctors, as well as our universities' increasing dependence on private, foreign money, which has deep socioeconomic underpinnings. If this fact irritates you, I'm afraid you have much bigger fish to go fry than a few foreign-trained Muslim doctors holed up in Albury - try taking aim at the world capitalist system instead. Instead of attacking the source of the problem, you are attacking people who are doing nothing more sinister than accepting the invitation of our government to come practise in areas of workplace shortage. Even if their quality of care is inferior to that of locally trained doctors (and I challenge you to provide non-anecdotal evidence of this), it is a slam dunk case that they are better than having no doctors AT ALL in some of these areas, which is the alternative.
I am still bemused by this notion of rural people and others feeling uncomfortable with Muslim doctors. Who cares if they feel uncomfortable? Do you think white parents felt comfortable having their kids go to school with black kids once segregation ended in the deep south of America?
Again, this is a problem related to chronic underfunding and a widespread shortage of doctors in rural areas. Why direct your anger at Asians and "curries", when it's your own government that is at fault for:
a) not doing enough in the past to recruit local doctors, and
b) not screening foreign doctors well enough to ensure they meet adequate standards?
Having said that, pointing to a few anecdotes of bad foreign-trained doctors proves nothing. You'd have to do a statistical analysis to show that their error rate, mortality, morbidity etc is higher than locally trained doctors. Otherwise all you are doing is selectively pointing to examples - I could just as well point to examples of home-bred, white, Anglo-Saxon doctors messing up. Proves nothing.
It's hard to believe that your entire initial post was not directed at Asians/subcontinentals, considering it was elaborating on your initial "I hope your not curry or asian" statement.
Your denials of racism would hold more water if you had said something like, "I hope you're not doing med because your parents forced you to." Instead, you've slurred an entire ethnicity, which I take very personally, since I know countless Asians and "curries" who have worked very, very hard to get into medicine - some slogging through undergraduate degrees, others taking 1, 2, even 3 years off after high school to keep re-trying the UMAT.
Well you don't have to worry about English literacy when it comes to the locally bred Asian/subcontinental cohort, that's for sure. It's hard to imagine English illiterate students getting into any Australian medical school now, considering the interview process most universities require. I also have doubts about your asian anaesthecist reg anecdote - how could someone who barely speaks English pass all his written exams, OSCEs and board certificates?
The point about undergrad vs postgrad med, and motivation to do med, is an interesting one. That's how they do it in the United States, all postgrad. There are several downsides though - for one, postgrad med courses are denser and typically less thorough (especially for students whose undergrad degree was non-science related) since they are 1 or 2 years shorter. 1 or 2 years longer to graduate may not seem like much, but it can make a big difference for women, especially women who start university a bit later in life, and want to have a family etc. I'm not convinced that there aren't better ways to sort out the wheat from the chuff so to speak.Your earlier comments are premised on the following notion: that students of Asian or Subcontinental background are more likely to do medicine solely because of parental pressure, than students of a European background. You are still yet to provide any compelling evidence that this is so, other than a handful of anecdotes. Anecdotes prove nothing, as for every example you give, I could give a splattering of counter-examples. It is particularly important not to rely on anecdotes whenever you make a racially inflammatory remark, because the topic is so sensitive to begin with.
I think it's worth pointing to a distinction here - there is a big difference between doing medicine partly because of parental pressure, and wholly because of parental pressure. I would suggest that probably close to 100% of medical students fit in the former category, in some way or another. It may not mean that the student's parents have insisted that they do the degree, but there are other forms of "parental pressure" - a desire to do one's parents proud, wanting to financially provide for one's parents later in life, repaying one's parents for the sacrifices they have conferred to you etc. More importantly, though, students who fit in the latter category (choose med solely because of parental pressure) do not last very long. Interestingly enough, the drop-out rate from Med school has plummeted since the introduction of the new medical curricula, suggesting that medical schools are now selecting the "right" students (i.e. ones who don't realise that med is not for them and drop out in 1st or 2nd year) - and guess what, the composition of Asians and Subcontinentals has not appreciably changed.
This is a different topic - I assume the Asians/Subcontinentals you were referring to earlier were Australian citizens. Now you're discussing foreign-trained doctors and foreign students, which is another matter. This phenomenon is driven, of course, by a chronic shortage of local doctors, as well as our universities' increasing dependence on private, foreign money, which has deep socioeconomic underpinnings. If this fact irritates you, I'm afraid you have much bigger fish to go fry than a few foreign-trained Muslim doctors holed up in Albury - try taking aim at the world capitalist system instead. Instead of attacking the source of the problem, you are attacking people who are doing nothing more sinister than accepting the invitation of our government to come practise in areas of workplace shortage. Even if their quality of care is inferior to that of locally trained doctors (and I challenge you to provide non-anecdotal evidence of this), it is a slam dunk case that they are better than having no doctors AT ALL in some of these areas, which is the alternative.
I am still bemused by this notion of rural people and others feeling uncomfortable with Muslim doctors. Who cares if they feel uncomfortable? Do you think white parents felt comfortable having their kids go to school with black kids once segregation ended in the deep south of America?
Again, this is a problem related to chronic underfunding and a widespread shortage of doctors in rural areas. Why direct your anger at Asians and "curries", when it's your own government that is at fault for:
a) not doing enough in the past to recruit local doctors, and
b) not screening foreign doctors well enough to ensure they meet adequate standards?
Having said that, pointing to a few anecdotes of bad foreign-trained doctors proves nothing. You'd have to do a statistical analysis to show that their error rate, mortality, morbidity etc is higher than locally trained doctors. Otherwise all you are doing is selectively pointing to examples - I could just as well point to examples of home-bred, white, Anglo-Saxon doctors messing up. Proves nothing.
It's hard to believe that your entire initial post was not directed at Asians/subcontinentals, considering it was elaborating on your initial "I hope your not curry or asian" statement.
Your denials of racism would hold more water if you had said something like, "I hope you're not doing med because your parents forced you to." Instead, you've slurred an entire ethnicity, which I take very personally, since I know countless Asians and "curries" who have worked very, very hard to get into medicine - some slogging through undergraduate degrees, others taking 1, 2, even 3 years off after high school to keep re-trying the UMAT.
Well you don't have to worry about English literacy when it comes to the locally bred Asian/subcontinental cohort, that's for sure. It's hard to imagine English illiterate students getting into any Australian medical school now, considering the interview process most universities require. I also have doubts about your asian anaesthecist reg anecdote - how could someone who barely speaks English pass all his written exams, OSCEs and board certificates?
The point about undergrad vs postgrad med, and motivation to do med, is an interesting one. That's how they do it in the United States, all postgrad. There are several downsides though - for one, postgrad med courses are denser and typically less thorough (especially for students whose undergrad degree was non-science related) since they are 1 or 2 years shorter. 1 or 2 years longer to graduate may not seem like much, but it can make a big difference for women, especially women who start university a bit later in life, and want to have a family etc. I'm not convinced that there aren't better ways to sort out the wheat from the chuff so to speak.Your earlier comments are premised on the following notion: that students of Asian or Subcontinental background are more likely to do medicine solely because of parental pressure, than students of a European background. You are still yet to provide any compelling evidence that this is so, other than a handful of anecdotes. Anecdotes prove nothing, as for every example you give, I could give a splattering of counter-examples. It is particularly important not to rely on anecdotes whenever you make a racially inflammatory remark, because the topic is so sensitive to begin with.
I think it's worth pointing to a distinction here - there is a big difference between doing medicine partly because of parental pressure, and wholly because of parental pressure. I would suggest that probably close to 100% of medical students fit in the former category, in some way or another. It may not mean that the student's parents have insisted that they do the degree, but there are other forms of "parental pressure" - a desire to do one's parents proud, wanting to financially provide for one's parents later in life, repaying one's parents for the sacrifices they have conferred to you etc. More importantly, though, students who fit in the latter category (choose med solely because of parental pressure) do not last very long. Interestingly enough, the drop-out rate from Med school has plummeted since the introduction of the new medical curricula, suggesting that medical schools are now selecting the "right" students (i.e. ones who don't realise that med is not for them and drop out in 1st or 2nd year) - and guess what, the composition of Asians and Subcontinentals has not appreciably changed.
This is a different topic - I assume the Asians/Subcontinentals you were referring to earlier were Australian citizens. Now you're discussing foreign-trained doctors and foreign students, which is another matter. This phenomenon is driven, of course, by a chronic shortage of local doctors, as well as our universities' increasing dependence on private, foreign money, which has deep socioeconomic underpinnings. If this fact irritates you, I'm afraid you have much bigger fish to go fry than a few foreign-trained Muslim doctors holed up in Albury - try taking aim at the world capitalist system instead. Instead of attacking the source of the problem, you are attacking people who are doing nothing more sinister than accepting the invitation of our government to come practise in areas of workplace shortage. Even if their quality of care is inferior to that of locally trained doctors (and I challenge you to provide non-anecdotal evidence of this), it is a slam dunk case that they are better than having no doctors AT ALL in some of these areas, which is the alternative.
I am still bemused by this notion of rural people and others feeling uncomfortable with Muslim doctors. Who cares if they feel uncomfortable? Do you think white parents felt comfortable having their kids go to school with black kids once segregation ended in the deep south of America?
Again, this is a problem related to chronic underfunding and a widespread shortage of doctors in rural areas. Why direct your anger at Asians and "curries", when it's your own government that is at fault for:
a) not doing enough in the past to recruit local doctors, and
b) not screening foreign doctors well enough to ensure they meet adequate standards?
Having said that, pointing to a few anecdotes of bad foreign-trained doctors proves nothing. You'd have to do a statistical analysis to show that their error rate, mortality, morbidity etc is higher than locally trained doctors. Otherwise all you are doing is selectively pointing to examples - I could just as well point to examples of home-bred, white, Anglo-Saxon doctors messing up. Proves nothing.
It's hard to believe that your entire initial post was not directed at Asians/subcontinentals, considering it was elaborating on your initial "I hope your not curry or asian" statement.
Your denials of racism would hold more water if you had said something like, "I hope you're not doing med because your parents forced you to." Instead, you've slurred an entire ethnicity, which I take very personally, since I know countless Asians and "curries" who have worked very, very hard to get into medicine - some slogging through undergraduate degrees, others taking 1, 2, even 3 years off after high school to keep re-trying the UMAT.
Well you don't have to worry about English literacy when it comes to the locally bred Asian/subcontinental cohort, that's for sure. It's hard to imagine English illiterate students getting into any Australian medical school now, considering the interview process most universities require. I also have doubts about your asian anaesthecist reg anecdote - how could someone who barely speaks English pass all his written exams, OSCEs and board certificates?
The point about undergrad vs postgrad med, and motivation to do med, is an interesting one. That's how they do it in the United States, all postgrad. There are several downsides though - for one, postgrad med courses are denser and typically less thorough (especially for students whose undergrad degree was non-science related) since they are 1 or 2 years shorter. 1 or 2 years longer to graduate may not seem like much, but it can make a big difference for women, especially women who start university a bit later in life, and want to have a family etc. I'm not convinced that there aren't better ways to sort out the wheat from the chuff so to speak.
