Long Slog for Foreign Doctors to Practice in U.S. Thousands of foreign-trained immigrant physicians are living in the United States with lifesaving skills that are lying fallow because they stumbled over one of the many hurdles in the path toward becoming a licensed doctor here. The onerous tests and often duplicative training these doctors must go through are intended to make sure they meet this country’s high quality standards, which American medical industry groups say are unmatched elsewhere in the world. Some development experts are also loath to make it too easy for foreign doctors to practice here because of the risk of a “brain drain” abroad. But many foreign physicians and their advocates argue that the process is unnecessarily restrictive and time-consuming, particularly since America’s need for doctors will expand sharply in a few short months under President Obama’s health care law. They point out that medical services cost far more in the United States than elsewhere in the world, in part because of such restrictions. The United States already faces a shortage of physicians in many parts of the country, especially in specialties where foreign-trained physicians are most likely to practice, like primary care. And that shortage is going to get exponentially worse, studies predict, when the health care law insures millions more Americans starting in 2014. Consider Sajith Abeyawickrama, 37, who was a decorated anesthesiologist in his native Sri Lanka. But here in the United States, where he came in 2010 to marry his wife, he cannot practice medicine. Instead of working as a doctor himself, he has held a series of odd jobs in the medical industry, including an unpaid position where he entered patient data into a hospital’s electronic medical records system, and, more recently, a paid position teaching a test prep course for students trying to become licensed doctors themselves. For years the United States has been training too few doctors to meet its own needs, in part because of industry-set limits on the number of medical school slots available. Today about one in four physicians practicing in the United States was trained abroad, a figure that includes a substantial number of American citizens who could not get into medical school at home and studied in places like the Caribbean. nytimes/2013/08/12/business/economy/long-slog-for-foreign-doctors-to-practice-in-us.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
Posted on: Sun, 11 Aug 2013 23:52:52 +0000
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