Foreign Born Doctors

[RiverDog]

Long story but bear with me. Last weekend, I was invited to a friend's house for a pre-New Year's party, a guy I've referred to before in this forum that I helped mentor and who immigrated from Peru 15 years ago. I was the only native born guy at the party and met a number of very interesting people, mostly from Peru. One person was an MD, said that he earned his degree in Peru, went to Penn State University, then as part of his work visa, was assigned to complete his residency at a hospital in my hometown here in the Tri Cities. He said that the federal government sends them to underserved parts of the country as a condition of their work permit.

When I told my wife, who is a retired nurse, about the encounter, she mentioned how there were a lot of foreign born doctors in our area, so it piqued my interest and I did some research. What I discovered was astounding:

There are more than 247,000 doctors with medical degrees from foreign countries practicing in the United States, making up slightly more than one-quarter of all doctors. Although the data used in this report does not contain information on country of birth or citizenship, evidence from other sources indicates that most foreign-trained doctors are not U.S. citizens—meaning that the majority are foreign-born. These doctors play a key role in providing healthcare for millions of Americans.

In areas with the highest poverty rates—where more than 30 percent of the population lives below the federal poverty rate—nearly one-third of all doctors are foreign-trained.

Where per-capita income is below $15,000 per year, 42.5 percent of all doctors are foreign-trained. Where 75 percent or more of the population is non-white, 36.2 percent of the doctors are foreign-trained. Where 10 percent or less of the population has a college degree, nearly one-third of all doctors are foreign-trained.

The demand for foreign-trained doctors will only increase as the need for doctors and accessible, affordable healthcare in the United States continues to grow. The Association of American Medical Colleges found that the demand for doctors will continue to outpace supply, leading to a projected shortfall of between 46,100 and 90,400 doctors by 2025, many in primary care. These shortages are compounded by the fact that large numbers of doctors will be retiring in the next few years.

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil. ... ommunities

I haven't had a chance to fact check this information and if somebody wants to rise to the challenge (too bad Idahawk isn't around anymore), you have my blessing. But there are other articles from other websites that reflect this information. If it's true, then it is more proof of how screwed up Donald Trump's immigration policy is where he's not only going after illegal immigration, but is proposing/making huge cuts in legal immigration and is statements and that his statement that "we're full" is categorically false.

[Aseahawkfan]

It is likely true. More foreign citizens seem more focused on education than Americans. Most notably from Asian nations like India, China, and the Southeast Asian nations. In my opinion, Indian and Asian people are the hardest working people out there. Americans have grown lazy in my opinion. Native born Americans don't raise their children very well or to be very ambitious. They have low expectations for their children. This is all on average with various exceptions of course. The era of American exceptionalism from European ancestry folk has long passed this nation. If not for the immigrants, we wouldn't have as many folk in higher education or achieving high levels in science and tech. Immigration has fueled the tech and medical industries.

Americans are a sad, lazy lot looking to use the law to protect them from harder working, more ambitious, more dedicated foreign born folk that know how to turn a nation like America into an amazing opportunity.

Just my opinion of course. I feel like immigrants enjoy being American more than Americans who take what it means to be American for granted.

[RiverDog]

It is likely true. More foreign citizens seem more focused on education than Americans. Most notably from Asian nations like India, China, and the Southeast Asian nations. In my opinion, Indian and Asian people are the hardest working people out there. Americans have grown lazy in my opinion. Native born Americans don't raise their children very well or to be very ambitious. They have low expectations for their children. This is all on average with various exceptions of course. The era of American exceptionalism from European ancestry folk has long passed this nation. If not for the immigrants, we wouldn't have as many folk in higher education or achieving high levels in science and tech. Immigration has fueled the tech and medical industries.

Americans are a sad, lazy lot looking to use the law to protect them from harder working, more ambitious, more dedicated foreign born folk that know how to turn a nation like America into an amazing opportunity.

Just my opinion of course. I feel like immigrants enjoy being American more than Americans who take what it means to be American for granted.

I largely agree with that. I didn't have a lot of experience with east Indians. Most of my experience was with Asians, Hispanics, Eastern Europeans, Arabs, and Africans. But in general, I would take a crew of immigrants over a crew of native born Americans any day of the week and twice on Sundays. They don't have an entitlement air about them, they are quicker to accept authority, have a deeper respect for their elders. Of course, there's always exceptions.

You're right about their enjoyment of America. Many if not most yearn to be like 'one of us'. At my former workplace, we had people wearing Seahawk stuff on Blue Friday that didn't know the first thing about American football just so they could feel part of the group of, for the lack of a better term, regular Americans. I've taken a number of them to Seahawk games, including the guy I referenced in the OP. It's a thrill for me to show them stuff that makes their eyes pop out.

But that was the point of my thread. I knew that we had a shortage of workers or potential workers in a lot of fields, particularly blue collar work like electricians and truck drivers. But I was unaware of the shortage we have for high paying occupations like doctors. It bears out what I've been arguing ever since Trump got himself elected by demonizing immigrants and playing to the fears of insecure, paranoid folks: That we need a rational, robust immigration policy that encourages young, healthy, law abiding, educated men and women that want to live and work in our country to come here and become Americans or legal working aliens.