Matters arising

Health services administration Global health
Volume 198 - Issue 5

Risks of complaints and adverse disciplinary findings against international medical graduates in Victoria and Western Australia

Author:  Shailja Chaturvedi

Med J Aust 2013; 198 (5): 256. || doi: 10.5694/mja12.11692
Published online: 18 March 2013
To the Editor: The article by Elkin and colleagues has certainly reheated the long-simmering debate about bringing highly trained international medical practitioners from other countries to provide health care in Australia. Yet, it does not discuss the clinical and cultural acclimatisation they need. There are many moral and social issues associated with condemning an IMG without helping them to adapt to their locality. The study ...
Download PDF (168 KB)
Share: Share on Blue Sky Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn Share by email

To the Editor: The article by Elkin and colleagues1 has certainly reheated the long-simmering debate about bringing highly trained international medical practitioners from other countries to provide health care in Australia. Yet, it does not discuss the clinical and cultural acclimatisation they need. There are many moral and social issues associated with condemning an IMG without helping them to adapt to their locality. The study indicates that an effective orientation process of integration for individual doctors from overseas is needed.

Australia actively recruits doctors from overseas on limited registration to provide adequate services in rural and remote areas. These doctors have limited access to Medicare, to free public education for their family members and to other services that Australian residents enjoy. This is not conducive to good medical practice.

IMGs are required to pass a series of examinations that test their language and technical competency, but this does not guarantee employment. Supervised positions, vital for clinical competency, are scarce for these doctors. Most high-level governance and administrative positions do not include IMGs who could represent other IMGs in deciding policy matters. Furthermore, complaints against IMGs appear to be more likely to attract publicity than similar cases involving local graduates, which affects their reputation.

Lastly, the countries from which IMGs have come, many of them less privileged than Australia, have significantly invested in their training. In proper acknowledgement of this, they should be able to work here as doctors. The path of professional development of IMGs should be monitored by the government to ensure this is possible. The Australian Indian Medical Graduates Association strongly objects to the current trend for IMGs in Australia to remain wastefully unemployed or underemployed for prolonged periods, and considers this trend to be unethical and inequitable.

View this article on Wiley Online Library