38 years ago
Canada 'swamped' by IMGs
WINNIPEG — Immigrant doctors — primarily British — are 'swamping' Canada, arriving in numbers that nearly equal the output of all our medical schools combined. Between 1963 and 1966 nearly the same number of Canadian-trained MDs received licences, while the number of foreign-trained MDs shot up from 687 to 729 in the same period. Experts say this influx of foreigners is helping to compensate for the mass exodus of Canadian medical school graduates who accept jobs in the US. Source: The Times of London 23 August 1966

46 years ago
Young doc a spy for the Reds?
NEW YORK — Dr Robert Soblen, a resident at New York's Rockland State Hospital, was nabbed by FBI agents on charges of conspiracy to spy on the US. The Lithuanian-born MD is accused of involvement in two decades' worth of plots to transmit American state secrets to the Soviets. FBI agents contend that late Soviet secret police head Lavrenti Beria was himself implicated in the nefarious plot. Source: The Times of London 30 November 1960

169 years ago
Quack medicine big business
BOSTON — Estimates peg the amount American quack doctors spend advertising their vile nostrums at a staggering $200,000 US. The same study, which appears in the Boston Medical Journal, held that only 1 in 25 consumers of these potions was actually sick to begin with. In the case of people who were indeed unwell, the scholars found that in 87% of cases sham remedies "did a positive injury." The authors quipped of the US citizenry's apparently insatiable desire for miracle cures: "A peck of pills a day is considered necessary for Boston, and a half a bushel for New York." Source: The Times of London 13 February 1837