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Medical organizations respond to Trump’s immigration order
Organizations representing physicians and medical students have expressed their concern regarding President Trump’s executive order of Jan. 27...
Rural health care and the VA seem to be on the front line in the battle over President Trump’s executive order halting travel to the U.S. for citizens of 7 Muslim-majority countries. The executive order, which has been temporarily suspended by a federal judge, could affect as many as 15,000 doctors and possibly even more pharmacists, nurses, and other health care providers. The ban also is expected to impact nearly 9,000 physicians from Iran and another 3,500 from Syria and 1,500 from Iraq.
The VA has long depended on foreign-born health care providers, and given the VA’s challenges in filling its more than 45,000 vacancies, this reliance was only expected to grow.. The Conrad 30 program allows J-1 medical doctors to apply for a waiver to the 2-year residence requirement upon completion of the J-1 exchange visitor program. Over the years, many international medical graduates (IMGs) earned permanent residence by agreeing to work 3 or 5 years in an underserved area or VA facility.
“The United States is facing a serious shortage of physicians. IMGs play an important role in U.S. health care, representing roughly 25% of the workforce,” AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) President and CEO Darrell G. Kirch, MD said in a statement. “In the last decade, Conrad 30 alone has directed nearly 10,000 physicians into rural and urban underserved communities. Impeding these U.S. immigration pathways jeopardizes critical access to high-quality physician care for our nation’s most vulnerable populations.”
Related: Medical Organizations Respond to Trump’s Immigration Order
According to an analysis of 2010 census data from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), foreign-born workers make up 15% of the 1.1 million health care providers in the U.S., which includes a significant proportion of physicians and surgeons (27%) and a smaller, but still significant number of registered nurses (15%), technologists and technicians (12%), and therapists (10%). Among support personnel foreign-born workers range from 19% of health care support workers to 22% of nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides.
In a more recent analysis from the George Mason Institute for Immigration Research , 22% of nursing, psychiatric, and home health aides are foreign born.
Most of the foreign-born health care providers have acquired U.S. citizenship, according to MPI, “with naturalization rates ranging from 55% for those working as nursing, psychiatric, or home health aides to 78% for other health care practitioners and technical occupations. According to American Association of Family Practitioners (AAFP), 42% of office visits in rural America are with foreign-born physicians.
“Many family physicians are IMGs, who have completed all or part of their education and training in the U.S.,” AAFP President John Meigs, Jr, MD, FAAFP, wrote in a letter to President Trump. “They are professionals who dedicate their careers to the service of their patients in communities large and small, urban and rural. In fact, 20% of our membership and over 25% of family medicine residents [comprise] IMGs. The AAFP applauds and supports wholly the contributions of these individual family physicians to their patients and communities and we celebrate their diversity.”