Dalhousie medical school to sell Saudis 10 seats

From Friday’s Globe and Mail

Published Thursday, Mar. 17, 2011 8:24PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Mar. 18, 2011 3:49AM EDT
In an urgent bid to plug a hole in its budget, Dalhousie University’s medical school will sell 10 vacant first-year seats to students from Saudi Arabia for $75,000 annually.

Dalhousie’s medical dean, Tom Marrie, says a reduction in provincial grants last year left the program underfunded, and that generating money from empty spaces is crucial to balancing the books.

The scheme is a targeted, stopgap solution, and may not be repeated. But most Canadian universities, including Dalhousie, are trumpeting Canadian education and looking to increase their foreign student enrolment as global competition for top talent – including those with deep pockets – heats up.

Dr. Marrie saw an opportunity recently when Dalhousie established a satellite medical school in New Brunswick, allowing students from that province to study remotely instead of in Nova Scotia, thus freeing up seats on the main campus.

The 63 places the provincial government funds for Nova Scotia students are full, so Dr. Marrie looked abroad. He decided recruiting in the United States would take too long, but Dalhousie has a history of training Saudi resident doctors, making it a natural partner.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

9 Replies to “Dalhousie medical school to sell Saudis 10 seats”

  1. So, would us nonbelievers nurses be expected to work with totalitarian doctors that cling to an unpleasant totalitarian ideology/culture?

  2. Hmm, fine, so how does this fit with all that ‘kill the infidel’ stuff ?
    No relevance I suppose?

  3. Dunno. I wonder what you would get if you googled for, ‘Muslim doctor arrested for terrorism’. Try for England, Scotland and Canada. Might have a ‘kill the infidel’ component.

  4. I have no respect for universities that sell seats in programs. Especially to Muslims to meet minority quotas.

    My wife and I have first-hand experience what sort of doctors come from Muslim countries.

    A few years ago we went to a local clinic and saw a Muslim doctor for some of my wife’s problems. Since we always go in together to give the doctors a more complete picture of our concerns, we entered the consultation room together. He would only speak to me, not my wife, until she told him to address her. Even then, he really didn’t listen and gave us little hope that anyone could do anything for her.

    He left the clinic to practice for the military. I wonder if he still gets away with treating women as if they don’t matter? I wonder when he will “snap” like the so-called psychiatrist did at Fort Hood?

    Dalhousie University, I salute you and your Board for being the biggest disgrace to post-secondary schools in Canada. Not to forget the biggest dhimmis as well.

  5. It is also wise to avoid any suppressive totalitarian islamic badly run medical centre. I have no respect for islamics who caused us motivated nonbelievers to be unemployed, due to the bad islamic interference and bad islamic influence.
    In some parts of asia, islamics are the majority and the majority islamics are known to push for preferential treatment for their own islamic community by pushing quota after quota, for their own islamic community in almost everything.

  6. Because some of the comments posted (some of which were quite racist), I thought I would quickly clarify a few things:
    – The dean of the medical school stated Saudi applicants will face the same admission and performance standards. “They will arrive speaking fluent English and with degrees from North American universities, so we are confident they will fit in well with our student body.” If the screening procedures at Dal don’t remove individuals who are sexist, bigots etc., then I wouldn’t just be worried about the incoming Saudi students, but the rest of the student population as well.
    -Just because a person is coming from Saudi Arabia, that doesn’t mean they believe in a totalitarian regime, nor does it mean they are sexist. Many of the comments written show a degree of ethnocentrism and geographical/cultural stereotyping. While there are many practices that I don’t agree with in Saudi Arabia, I will never assume that every Saudi believes/supports those practices.

    The concerns/worries that are brought up in the comments are definitely real ones and I don’t deny that. I think it would have been better if the media had followed up on this and clarified with Dr. Marrie (the dean) to ensure these students will be appropriately screened like every other medical student and also reassure the public that such screening procedures are intensive/thorough enough. Another issue that was not brought up in the general media, was why Saudi Arabia?

    The aim of this initiative is not what RRWest suggested (which he said was to meet minority quotas for Muslims), but instead in reality was done to solve financial issues (I strongly wonder if RRWest even read into this issue at all).

    While people can criticize the brining in of non-Canadian medical students to Dal (the Canadian Federation of Medical Students did that: http://www.cfms.org/news.asp?ID=99), no one is proposing alternative solutions for the school to solve its budget issues.

    They are currently having accreditation issues and without money to fix those problems, the school is risking the education of current and future Canadian students at the medical school.

    While I don’t think it’s the best solution, without additional government funding or raising tuition rates considerably, I’m not sure if there is another method to balance the budget.

  7. I read most of the comments and all are sick, racists. Its privilege for you to have muslim doctors as you can learn from them how to live a normal life, free of alcoholism, sexually transmitted diseases, to keep yourself clean and tidy(how to use toilet, clean yourself!!), how to respect women,not just worship the rules as…..

  8. Face the facts, Saudis, even the darker ones, are one of the most racist oriental people on this earth. We, nonbelievers or of other faiths don’t need to lean anything from islam or islamic people. Perhaps only islamic people need to be told by their god to “clean up” and how to live a “normal” or “healthy” life. Only a moron would need to learn anything from the Saudis. Even in this age and time, the West, without the interference of any obssessvie eastern or islamic ideology, is still much more cleaner and more hygienic that the rest of the asian, middle eastern, african “world”.