Allow Certified Foreign Medical Graduates to challenge the Physician Assistant certification examination without undergoing the currently required physician assistant course.

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,

We are Certified Foreign Medical Graduates. We would like to be able to bypass the Physician's Assistant school program in order to challenge the Physician's Assistant Certification Examination. We passed the United States Medical Licensing Examination. We are qualified to apply for medical residency training to obtain our Doctor of Medicine license. We feel we are discriminated due to the elimination of Medicare funding for foreign medical graduates to undergo medical residency. It is very difficult for us to compete with the United States Medical graduates who have the funding to complete their residency trainings. We are U.S. Citizens who want to work. We don't want monetary support from the government. We are labeled over-qualified for certain positions in the medical field making it hard to find jobs that fit us. We are more than qualified to do a Physician's Assistant job. We ask acknowledgement that if a foreign medical graduate is qualified to work as medical residents then they are also qualified to work as Physician's Assistant. Foreign Medical Graduates are qualified to work under the Federal Bureau of Prisons as Physician's Assistant without a USMLE certification. There's no difference between Physician's Assistant in the Federal Bureau of Prisons and outside of it. How is it distinguished that foreign graduates are only qualified to work as Physician's Assistant in the Federal bureau of Prisons? We need your support to challenge the Physician's Assistant requirements/tests. It is not fair for us to undergo Physician's Assistant schooling when we already have the knowledge and education to do the job. This is just a waste of our time and money.

The Undersigned,