Great article MH,
well lets start with sydney uni. we are the full fee paying international students. our class is capped at $35,000 per year tuition. the years after us arent so lucky. then, there are the local HECS (higher education) fee paying students who paying about $6500/year. however the demand for doctors is ever so. as such the australian med schools are increasing the number of spots to fill this void. to do that, they are also introducing spots for local full fee paying students from this year.
there are about 12 or 13 medical schools in the whole of Aust., a country of 20 million population and the size that equal to or bigger than the USA. and the admission is cut throat as everywhere else. there are some medical programs where students attend medical school right after high school.
however the belief has shifted towards introducing post graduate education because this means that students already have some sort of degree; and most students have some sort of work, research, volunteer, life experiences making them viable, mature candidates, thus helping them to make better judgement and therefore better docs.
but stduents dont agree on introducing full fee paying local students. they mostly believe that this will commercialize education; on the other hand, this will also reduce chances of full fee paying international students from getting admissions. of course this is a hotly debated topic.
migration to foreign country for medical eduation is no new issue; however foreign medical degree isnt something that is looked upon that lightly. after all, the institutions here and the graduates value their own system. of course money is money and people will whinge and bitch about the large sum. but when push comes to shove, they will go for the full fee paying education. not to sound egocentric but most people who are doing medicine seem to come from financially stable families. and for others, there are scholarships.
the US has been doing this for god knows how long. the brilliont ones will obviously get great scholarships; the lucky ones have affluent families and for the rest, there is dear old uncle sam, signing your loan cheques. at the end, it works out for all. all that matters is how bad you wanna be a doctor.
and the loans, most of my american peers who did medicine in US will pay it off in a few years. i guess it isnt surprising that doctors are compensated so well in US. I m sure part of it is to help the docs help get out of med school debt. and it sure is a fine system.
