Foreign doctors crucial to US healthcare are caught in an immigration, visa maze

The Covid-19 pandemic exposed a pressing issue: The US health care system is increasingly dependent on immigrant physicians, but it’s becoming harder for aspiring ones to work and settle in the US.

Today, one in four doctors are foreign-born, international medical graduates. Their numbers are even larger in underserved areas – essentially, low-income, more rural parts of the country where many American doctors don’t want to work.

This immigrant workforce is key to offsetting a dire physician shortage. The need for more doctors is due, in part, to America’s growing and aging population; US-born doctors’ unwillingness to move to poorer and more rural areas; and US-born doctors’ lack of interest in going into primary care, which can be less lucrative and prestigious than other areas of medicine.

As a result, immigrant doctors have become indispensable in hospitals and clinics across the nation. But while they’re in demand, more and more foreign doctors are starting to see the immigration process as a risky endeavour.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, I wrote my dissertation about how immigrant physicians navigate the US immigration system and foreign licensing procedures. My interviewees described how a combination of stricter immigration policies and more competition for residency spots have made the US a less feasible destination.

Visa vicissitudes

US visas can be categorised into two categories: immigrant and nonimmigrant. Nonimmigrant visas, such...

Read more