Tidbit for International Students.

Today I received my Student BMJ in the mail and while reading the front page articles on the newspaper - I managed to walk into a door. You may ask: "What's so interesting?"

Well there is an article called: "BMA rejects 'unjust' limits on training for non-EEA medics". A summary of this article is literally about the unfair treatment towards international students especially those studying medicine. I was shocked to see that us international students' tuition fee contribute £100m annually! WHAT! That's a HUGE number. Technically we should get equal rights on getting specialty training and with the new immigration rule of removing the Tier 1 Visa it will essentially be impossible to get specialty training in England. So in the last post I said that recruiters don't care if you are international and they are happy to accept them. THE annoying part is the VISA and that Tier 1 visas is our post-study work route for specialty training, which they want to junk.

It was shown in studies that International graduates are not stealing away jobs from local students so they don't see why they should make an international student's life so difficult. I don't know if you guys have been around the hospitals a lot but I have noticed a lot of consultants aren't actually local British people. I've talked to a few consultants who are from India and we have had a few internationals who lectured us - and they appear to be quite skilled (well they are consultants). Unfortunately with the junking of Tier 1 and if these consultants have not declared citizenship...wouldn't they be in danger of being kicked out from the country?! That to me sounds quite shocking that the UK would want to kick out highly skilled people...especially extremely skilled consultants. It was also mentioned that it is unfair towards those medical students who are currently studying medicine and suddenly changing the immigration rule on us midway through our degree. If some of us knew about these immigration restrictions and not being able to do a specialty...some of us may have not chosen to come to study in England as essentially it appears to be a flipping dead end after foundation year 2.

Now with the NHS reform and the ridiculous suggestions...I do not know what is the UK government trying to accomplish. I feel that the UK heavily relies on immigrants for jobs and it is a shame that they believe that internationals are getting in the way of locals. While providing £100m annually from tuition fees in total and the NHS is spending a couple hundred thousand pounds to train each medical student (including internationals) I reckon the smart thing to do is to not shoo us away. If the UK is going to make working in the UK as a doctor and an international so difficult and almost impossible, just simply stop international students from applying to universities! With every article I read about the immigration rules and how it'll affect us, the less UK appears to be welcoming. Hopefully by the time I graduate the UK government gets their heads checked and really take a deep thought about the consequences of these immigration rules will do the economy and the work force. I feel that internationals play a vital role in the UK as a whole. Really is a shame if these immigration rules completely bar off internationals. Multiculturism is good to have and especially coming from one of the more successful multicultural countries (Canada) - I truly feel that immigrants are not as welcomed anymore in the UK.

Local students may argue with me on this, but really what a shame.