In any case, there is a difference between the general level of competency of doctors in a given country, and the level of competency available to wealthy foreigners travelling to the country for medical tourism.

There's something seriously wrong with both the healthcare system and the education system in US if the prices are 20x+ more than in any other country.

Careful here. I live in London for several years now, and from my experience Eastern European doctors are much better qualified then Western European. I'm originally from Poland, and medical studies are really hard, and people spend whole 6 years cramming just to become an apprentice to the doctor (it's Bachelors and Masters degree combined). On the other hand in western countries you can do undergrad degree in anything and only then apply to med school.

This was a few years ago though, from what I've seen the costs for eye lasering here seem to be catching up a little.

Frankly I'm a bit surprised by all the people in this thread saying "well that's a huge price difference, but how do you know Indian doctors are as good as US doctors"--as good? On what basis is the default assumption that US doctors would be better and the Indian ones need to prove themselves? All I know of the US healthcare system is that it's ridiculously overpriced, but just like that $8 bowl of ramen (wat) someone mentioned upthread, doesn't mean it's better, it might even be worse.

This isn't quite right. If you want access to anything but a fly-by-night medical school, they're wanting hard science and most likely a focus in biology.

The difference between these two ends is incredible. While I can imagine these results at the latter, I find them hard to believe at the former. I'm paywalled away from this for the next two weeks, so if you want the facts, that's where I'd look: what sort of private healthcare.

Edit: To illustrate, another commenter has a link to an news story that says mortality is lower after the Indian procedure - http://m.theaustralian.com.au/archive/business-old/the-henry...

Anyway, you're drawing the wrong conclusion - it's astounding how close the US mortality rate is to the Indian, which attests to how good the US system is at operating successfully on more complex, elderly patients. Of course, you could argue that the US has optimised the wrong thing, at great expense...

Is that connected to the extra funding that older people get?

What happens if we compare mortality in people under 65?

Do centres that do more surgery have better outcomes? The answer to this is already a resounding yes. There isn't any doubt about that, it's been shown over and over again for multiple different surgeries within developed countries. Surgeons knows this, and so do health insurance companies. But of course this has to be asymptotic. Doing 1000000 CABGs doesn't make you 1000 times better than the surgeon that does 1000. So I doubt there is any real difference between the surgical skill in Shetty's centre and top institutions in the US. It's an untestable question in any case. The important point is that the care overall seems grossly non-inferior to the US, not that the US is inferior.

The problem is they would become proficient at treating the wrong things. Medical conditions vary greatly by geography. Polio is still alive in the third world, Russia is fighting drug resistant TB, and up thread there is a mention of a surgery performed at a 1000x rate in India compared to the US(Once a decade vs once a day). All the while what affects Americans would be glossed over because it doesn't infect the rest of the world at the same rates.

Also, the 16 hour/day rule is only for interns, IIRC. Resident shifts can go up to 30(?) hours.

As a Indian (who comes from relatively simple background), I don't need a study to tell me that general/govt. hospitals that provide PHC are overcrowded, lack necessary support staff, lack necessary equipment.

What the bloomberg article is talking about is, another class of hospitals and medical staff. Narayan Hridayala, Fortis etc employ pretty good doctors.

I doubt that, any general statement can be made about - "doctors trained in India are less qualified than US", because it depends on lot of factors.

EDIT: Added "may be?"

Within the US, the cost of heart surgery is highly variable, but if I were to go international, i would go south/central America over India any dry.