Dear oh dear USMedStudent - you are a sad and ignorant little individual aren't you.
1. Your "vacation" obviously was brought to a violent and unpleasant end, when it became obvious that "Mommy and Daddy" weren't going to be able to buy you an real education. Face it, you weren't good enough, and I hazard a guess that you never will me.
2. Those "laws" which you talk about are highly developed in Australia. Do a search on "Racial Discrimination Act" at
www.austlii.edu.au for a start. Your ignorance is astounding. Lecturing Australians on prejudice and racism - that's a bit rich coming from an American!
3. Yes, the Woomera Detention Centre is sooooooooo barbaric. I mean the kids get sent to school every day, they have computers rooms, better medical care than the vast majority of Australians, religiously-sensitive food provided (eg: halal food), Satellite subscription television (with foreign language programmes), tax-payer funded legal aid, recreation equipment, the list goes on and on! Once again, please do everyone a favour (including yourself) and don't broadcast you ignorance so blatantly! While you're at it, please cite all these comments made by politicians.
4. Thank God that Australia doesn't require the political correctness gone made quota systems that have infected U.S. society. The fact that you need such quotas clearly reflects the prejudice and racism that exists in U.S. society!
5. Where's your evidence of "rigging" of grades? Maybe you're just having trouble accepting that even though "Mommy and Daddy" had to buy you a top-quality Australian medical education (because you weren't smart enough to get accepted in the U.S., so your parents were forced to BUY you a place in Oz!), you just couldn't cut it. I doubt you ever will.
6. There are a lot of things that Australians have, but an inferiority complex to Americans - puuuuuuuuuuulease! Give me a break! I hate to break the news to you, but Australians increasingly view the "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" with a shake of the head, roll of the eyes, and even a sense of pity for its inhabitants.
In short, I suggest you just accept the fact that you're obviously a socially-inept, psychologically troubled individual who just couldn't, and probably never will "really make the grade". I think the sooner you do this, the better for everyone, including your sad and sorry self.
Overall, I learned absolutely nothing, zero, about medicine in Aus. My 4-yrs in Aus were a vacation. Aus consultants had nothing to teach me even if they had wanted. However they did teach me how racism, prejudice, are formalized from the lowest to highest levels in a society.
Prejudice is in all of us, but at least in the US and other civilized countries there are LAWS that prevent people from expressing it. However it is only in Aus that it is allowed to express, carry on with concrete actions. Jenni, don't you know how inhumane, how barbaric, the Refugee Detention Center in Woomera, South Aus, is treating refugees, those that Aus created by invading their countries? It's just not the way the civilized world works. Not now, not here. I can cite numerous incidents in Aus newspapers that many Aus politicians made very racist, sexist remarks that if any US politicians said the same, their career would be over the next day.
There're ethnic, racial quotas in all US med school ADMISSIONS policies, but NOT in GRADUATING ones. US schools just don't accept more than a pre-set number of student from certain races, ethnics, because if they do, over 75% of future doctors would be Asian and that won't be good for social harmony. However, once a student's been in school, he/she is treated fairly and equally as everyone else, because he/she is an integral member of the school community.
In Aus, however, med schools are only interested in MONEY that US students pay, and have no regards of their education, future career, graduation. They allow racism to proliferate in classrooms, wards, exam rooms, Exam Boards meetings where they rig results. They know if graded fairly, all US students would easily pass, and that may send the message that their education standard is too low--which I think is abysmally low by the way. It'd be like a competition where everyone gets the gold medal. So they pre-set a number that each year they just have to fail some US students to make their school looks "tough and rigorous." How? They give exams that require essay-typed answers which they can easily give any points they want, from 0 to whatever, without having to explain why.
Some consultants gave me the questions before the exams, because I cared to come to their office often, pretending I was dumb. They liked that, that boosted up their inferiority complex toward US students. Aus radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, are all about US, done, made, in the US. Aus Prime Minister Mr. Howard would trade his right arm for a meeting with Prez Bush. The opposition leader branded him as "arse-licking the Americans" outright, one Mr. Howard never disputed. Many consultants can be patriotic, they resent that, and they take it out on whom, if not people on whom they have absolute power over?
In many papers I wrote, I got, say, 8 out of 10 on certain questions while other smarter more independent-minded friends of mine wrote Robbins-typed answers and got 2 out of 10. When they knew they failed, they tried to get their papers to question why, but the school refused to let them see their own papers, until many weeks, months, later when things cooled down and everyone already went home. When they finally got their papers, so what, what could they say, because there were no markings on the papers, just "2" at the end. There were no criteria on how a paper should be graded, what the students should write to get the grades, etc. All were subjective like Figure Skating at the Olympics, widely opened for the virus of prejudice to infect, invade, break loose in Aus society.
About the OSCE exams, I couldn't care less if the p/t was Aboriginal or illiterate or whatever, but I cared because HE or SHE would determine my progress, my career, my life. It's profusely stupid that the school let the p/t to give marks to students, up to 30% (0 to 6 out of 20), and the consultant gives the rest 70%. Again, there were no criteria, no write-up reports, so a student could be as good as God and may still fail the OSCE.
Many people choose to be blissful in their ignorance. That's good for me, less competitors for my future jobs.
