A performance comparison: USMG-FMG attending physicians.

To determine whether patterns of differences in performance exist between United States Medical Graduate and Foreign Medical Graduate attending Physicians, two types of inpatient hospital audits (Payne Process Audit and the Joint Committee on Accreditation of Hospitals' Performance Evaluation Program-P.E.P. Audit) were conducted in 22 Maryland and Pennsylvania non-federal, short-term hospitals. A total of 6,980 medical records were abstracted from eight diagnostic categories for 1,321 attending physicians; 985 of which were USMGs and 331 were FMGs. The results from both audits indicate that while there is evidence of a strong hospital-type of physician interaction for many of the diagnoses, there was no significant overall difference in performance between USMG and FMG attending physicians. The largest and most consistent differences in physician performance were associated with hospital characteristics, not physician characteristics.