US Hospital Rankings

The new USNews rankings have been out for a while so here's the link for those of you who missed it:

USNews:

http://health.usnews.com/best-hospitals

Here is also Thompson Reuters' rankings which is divided into teaching/community hospitals:

Thompson Reuters Top National Hospitals:

http://www.100tophospitals.com/top-national-hospitals/

Qatar=Cornell, UAE=Harvard, Saudi=Hopkins, Bahrain=RCSI, Kuwait=Nothing

As I was browsing through medical news today, the headline 'Leading Ophthalmological Centres In The United States and Saudi Arabia Announce Affiliation' caught my eye. Apparently, the Wilmer Eye Institue of John Hopkins (which has held the top spot in USNews' annual hospital ranking since 1990) will be collaborating with King Khaled Specialist Eye Hospital in Riyadh in the following areas: patient care, education and research. Click here to read article

How come every country in the Gulf, except Kuwait, is setting up international medical collaborations? Qatar has an Ivy League medical school, Dubai has Harvard Research Foundation, plus Tawam Hospital has a John Hopkins affiliation and even Bahrain has the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. We got zip!

The opportunities such collaborations would open up for patients and doctors are invaluable. Does anyone know why we are so behind?

Powerpoint Slides from Conference's Days 1

This is a link to our Slideshare page, which has the slides from the conference's first day's presentations:

http://www.slideshare.net/kmsukir

The slides are from the following talks:

-Comparing Programs from Different Countries by Dr. Altayyeb Yousef

-How to apply to the Canadian Exam by Dr. Mohammed Al-Bader

-USMLE and Canadian Exams by Dr. Ali Alali

-What to Do After the Exams by Dr. Altayyeb Yousef and Dr. Mohammad Ibraheem

-The Interivew by Dr. Sadikah Behbehani and Dr. Mohammed Al-Bader

-What's after the interview by Dr. Altayyeb Yousef

We plan to post videos from the conference and ethical case studies for the interviews so keep watching this space.

Again, we would like to thank all the speakers and KuMSA for their help.

Doctors in Training

This is an online USMLE Step 1 course that is starting on the 11th January, 2 days from now. The course is divided into 2 parts. The first part of the course assigns you study material from First Aid that you need to cover each week and they e-mail you questions to test your knowledge. The second part is video footage of live lectures that start in March and run for 15 days. At $700, it's much cheaper than Kaplan. Here is a link to their promotional video for people considering using this course:

http://legacy.course.doctorsintraining.com/DEMOplayer.php