While anti-immigrant sentiment has become more widespread among many, in medicine it is clear that immigrant physicians play an important role. This is discussed in a recent NY Times article: Why America Needs Foreign Medical Graduates
The key points:
- Foreign medical graduates help fill residency training positions that would otherwise be left vacant. Their availability helps many hospitals operate.
- Foreign medical graduates disproportionately take positions in primary care, accounting for approximately 40% of primary care physicians.
- There is evidence that the care of foreign medical graduates is at least as good as physicians who received their medical degrees in the U.S.
An excerpt:
The American system relies to a surprising extent on foreign medical graduates, most of whom are citizens of other countries when they arrive. By any objective standard, the United States trains far too few physicians to care for all the patients who need them. We rank toward the bottom of developed nations with respect to medical graduates per population…
A 2015 study found that almost a quarter of residents across all fields, and more than a third of residents in subspecialist programs, were foreign medical graduates…
About a quarter of all doctors in the United States are foreign medical graduates.
My take: Physicians from other countries improve the health of our entire country. In addition, many physicians who train in the U.S. return abroad and help improve health in their home countries.
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