> How do you feel about the fact that doctors from foreign countries need to requalify in the US with a whole ‘nother MD program here? Even if they’re from a country with as-or-more stringent requirements, and decades of experience?

There are plenty of countries that do have MD programs that the United States recognizes, like Canada for instance. It's a political issue more than anything. If the medical licensing boards in multiple different countries could come together for some form of agreed licensing this could easily by possible.

> There are plenty of countries that do have MD programs that the United States recognizes, like Canada for instance.

Are there any other countries besides Canada in that list? As far as I know, Canada- and US-educated doctors can practice anywhere in Canada or the US. Everyone else has to be "re-certified," which includes doing a residency in Canada or US. It is very competitive to get a residency placement. The results is that if you have not done a residency in the US or Canada, the rule of thumb is that it takes 10 years to get licensed to practice and you have a 10% chance of success.

In other words, the problem is not that licensing boards don't accept degrees from other countries, but that they don't accept residencies. And getting a residency spot is so competitive and such a long shot that few people can successfully do it.

I fully agree with the US decision. I want my MDs to pass some baseline aptitude set by US regulation and if a governing board decides a country cannot meet that then those doctors need to re-apply.

Why? US health care is proven to be inferior to that of many European countries.

I suspect the reason that AMA limit access to US markets for foreign trained doctors is because limiting the supply of doctors in the US would likely increase the average salary for current US doctors.

Because it sets baseline standards. Yes, I think everyone knows the US does not have the best healthcare in the world. But I also think it's 100% appropriate to say if you want to practice medicine in this country then you must meet our standards. Just like a drivers license might not be valid in any country you visit outside your own.

They don’t just need to re-do the testing; they need to waste six years and another $300k of tuition to learn things they already know, before anyone will be willing to test them.

That's because residency programs are completely messed up.

But this is just one of the many reasons for why medical care is so expensive in the US.

This applies to technology as well: I want the people writing code that will be deployed in $CRITICAL_SITUATION to pass some baseline aptitude test set by US regulation, ideally with some ethics component. Unfortunately, no such thing exists in software and there's a surprising pushback.

It sort of exists. P.E. Software engineering like most of the other engineering branches use. Signing off on designs that require regulatory approval often requires a PE. In my first job in mechanical design etc. it was understood that I would get this as soon as I could.

However my understanding is that almost no one gets this in software and it’s being discontinued.

In what country? I have heard that this is required in Canada, but I've never heard of it in the US.

US. It's so uncommon though (in software engineering specifically) that they're apparently dropping it.

> How do you feel about the fact that doctors from foreign countries need to requalify in the US [...]

I have zero problem with this. If I was a doctor on the US and moved outside of it I'd expect to requalify there. Different areas have different levels required and just because you've met the levels required in one area doesn't mean you've met them in another.

> They don’t just need to re-do the testing; they need to waste six years and another $300k of tuition to learn things they already know, before anyone will be willing to test them.

That's your actual concern. I don't think you want to get rid of requalification, just make the process quicker and less expensive. Advocate for this, then.