Blog: Foreign medical students can't speak French/Creole

As we all know whenever Mauritians go to study medicine in a foreign country, it is mandatory for them to learn the speaking language of that country.

They are made to pass a test in that language else they would not be promoted to the next level, despite clearing the basic sciences exams. The reason for this IMPORTANT requirement is that in the further years of medical studies, one must learn to deal with patients, talk to them and understand how they describe their symptoms in their local language and this is a sinequanon condition for a medical student to become a good doctor. This is why our fellow Mauritian doctors to be need to learn master and speak fluently MANDARIN, RUSSIAN, HINDI, URDU and DUTCH of whatsoever foreign language. It is to be noted that despite our national language being ENGLISH Mauritians do take a language assessment in the British council before leaving for study or work in EUROPE or Canada.

HOWEVER IN MAURITIUS OUR FAMOUS MEDICAL institution SSRMC does not assess its students for French or Mauritian creole! True it is that a lady used to teach the language of Moliere on Saturdays to the first year students but this has ceased since the French or Mauritian creole was not assessed the students always bunked that class.

AND when the students join the second and third professional levels that is where they should be fluent in French or creole so that they can do the history taking and examination of patients in the wards, these foreign students no very little of our local language. These students roam around the wards of our hospital smiling to our patients and uttering the few French and creole words that they can say/understand: `bonjou` `bonjou`
As far as the cases that they should be taking the only copy them from Mauritians students.

The administration of the institutions knows well about the issue, and has several times given some verbal encouragement or suggestion to the students that learning the language will be good. But no concrete actions are taken. Even in the practical examinations the foreign students very rarely find an English speaking or hindi speaking patient to take the history from and here again they copy from the Mauritian students or worst they falsify cases and present them to the teachers. IS THIS THE LEVEL OF QUALITY of doctors that Mauritius is producing for the international community? NOT only producing such doctors will harm our international reputation but also the current practice is very unjust towards the Mauritian students, who are either forced to take cases for their colleagues or find their cases copied or even find the foreigners being given a more lenient assessment during examination as they do not know the local language.

IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT DOCTORS PRODUCED BY MAURITIUS KNOW MAURITIAN CREOLE or FRENCH, an independent examination should be taken from the foreigners by the UOM, or MES. Or simply the foreigners should be taking part in the CAMBRIDGE JUNE or NOVEMBER French o level examination. A batch of about 70 students will be giving final professional-2 examination in November 2011, it will be a good opportunity to try to apply new measures and impose a language assessment over these students so that we are sure that during their 5 years of MbbS studies and 3 years of clinical (hospital postings) they have been genuinely taking histories and examining patients of it was simply a great drama or comedy. And most important of all that our INTERNATIONAL REPUTATION does not get tarnished.