Fewer foreign doctors enrol in US, says report

The number of foreign doctors wanting to pursue the graduate medical education in the US has been wavering in the past few years. The situation has, however, become worse of late.

The proportion of immigrants who became US doctors and surgeons increased to 28 percent in 2016, up from 20 percent in 1990, said Washington’s The Migration Policy Institute.

Mona Signer, president and chief executive of the National Resident Matching Program, a US-based non-profit organization, was quoted by LA Times as saying that they were definitely concerned that this fall began at about the same time that the US administration was mulling carrying out a travel ban on foreign nationals or limiting their entry into America.

It is reported that there more 500 doctors in Los Angeles from Somalia, Iran, Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Syria, the countries on which the second version of travel ban was enforced, said the Immigrant Doctors Project, Harvard and MIT doctoral students’ assessment of online physician data.

Dr Bahman Bandari, president of the SoCal Persian American Medical Association, said especially, Southern California had gained as many Iranian physicians settled there. With the immigrant doctors feeling marginalized by the policies of US administration, they may look to be educated elsewhere, he said.

He said that they would head to other countries owing to anxiety as to how they would be treated in America, leading to deterioration of the quality of the doctors who would enter the US compared to in the past.

Jeanne Batalova, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, the US, which used to be the most desired destination for skilled professionals and healthcare professionals, especially, is losing its competitive advantage because other countries are putting in place a much more attractive policy to entice professionals.

For instance, countries such as Australia, Canada and some European countries are easing their immigration processes to encourage foreign doctors to come to their countries to train and reside there, said Batalova.

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