NYAPATI R. RAO, MD, MS, CHAIR OF PSYCHIATRY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES AT NUMC, ELECTED TO BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION FOR FOREIGN MEDICAL GRADUATES
Victor F. Politi, MD, FACP, FACEP
President/CEO
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 9, 2014
PRESS CONTACT:
Shelley Lotenberg
shelley@numc.edu
516-572-6055
NYAPATI R. RAO, MD, MS, CHAIR OF PSYCHIATRY AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES AT NUMC, ELECTED TO BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF EDUCATIONAL COMMISSION FOR FOREIGN MEDICAL GRADUATES
East Meadow, NY……………Victor F. Politi, MD, FACP, FACEP, NuHealth’s President/CEO, announces that Nyapati R. Rao. MD, MS, chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Nassau University Medical Center (NUMC), has been elected to the Board of Trustees of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG). Dr. Rao’s initial term will be for four years beginning January 1, 2015 through December 31, 2018, at which time he will be eligible for re-election to a final four-year term.
“Congratulations on your election to the Board of Trustees of ECFMG, a private, non-profit organization that has certified more than 320,000 international medical graduates (IMG) since 1958. You are to be commended for your commitment to promoting excellence in international medical education,” said Dr. Politi.
International medical graduates comprise one quarter of the U.S. physician workforce. Certification by ECFMG is the standard in evaluating the qualifications of these physicians before they enter the United States graduate medical education system, where they provide supervised patient care. ECFMG Certification also is a requirement for IMGs to take Step 3 of the three-step U.S. Medical Licensing Examination and to obtain unrestricted license to practice medicine in the United States.
Dr. Rao is a leading scholar on the demographic, labor relations, educational, socio-cultural, and developmental issues facing international medical graduate (IMG) physicians. For more than two decades he has also been a tireless advocate for IMG physicians in numerous medical professional forums. For the past eight years, he has been the Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Chief Academic Officer at NuHealth’s Nassau University Medical Center, an award-winning safety-net hospital for the underserved whose staff includes a significant number of IMG physicians. Prior to 2006, for nineteen years he served as a Psychiatry Training Director, first at Brookdale Hospital and then at SUNY Downstate Medical School.
His more than a hundred presentations, thirty papers and book chapters on IMG education provide an essential guide for residency directors at programs with IMG trainees. He is currently working on a training guide for IMGs in psychiatry. His themes include better training outcomes for IMG residents, deeper understanding of the impact of diverse cultures on psychiatric learning, and stigma and discrimination affecting the careers of IMG physicians. His commitment to national policy issues in psychiatric education is also demonstrated by his accomplishments on six American Psychiatric Association (APA) committees related to scholarship and learning, three as Chair or Vice-Chair.
Dr. Rao was Chair of the AMA’s Governing Council on IMG Affairs. He has organized IMG workshops and courses at every APA annual meeting for the past six years, most recently the all-day IMG Summit at the 2014 Annual Meeting in New York, co-sponsored by the APA Division of Diversity and Health Equity, the APA Caucus of International Medical Graduate Psychiatrists, and the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry’s Global Psychiatry Committee. His many honors include the 2009 George Tarjan Award from the APA, and the 2008 Educator of the Year Award from the Association of Academic Psychiatry.
“I am honored to have been elected to the ECFMG Board and look forward to working to further the mission of the organization which is to ensure that all physicians entering the U.S. GME have the required clinical skills, medical knowledge and professionalism. I am also very excited to join this organization at this juncture as ECFMG is about to launch an accreditation process for all medical schools abroad whose graduates work in the USA. One can imagine the cultural and logistical challenges this process will create as well as the opportunities to enhance the quality of medical education and care in those countries it will provide. In addition, the uncertainty of IMGs presence in the future of GME in the USA needs to be addressed. I thank the BOT of the AMA and the ECFMG for giving me this great opportunity and I will, hopefully, live up to their expectations..”
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