Importing Third World Medical School Graduates

Scientific American op-ed

Every year, more than 4,000 foreign graduates of international medical schools come to the United States for a residency program. They rarely return home to serve the countries that raised and educated them. Meanwhile, more than 2,000 graduates from U.S. medical schools each year are blocked from becoming doctors because there are not enough residency programs for them to enter, and they cannot practice medicine without this training experience. A further 2,000 American graduates of international medical schools are also denied the opportunity to practice medicine in the U.S. for the same reason. As COVID-19 has inevitably spread to developing countries, this policy will come to be seen for what it is: robbing developing countries of their desperately needed medical professionals. This must stop, even though American medical care benefits from being able to take the best doctors for ourselves.

Note how this is only presented as an argument for America to change American policy to benefit other countries. A better reason is that America should be taking care of its own citizen. If an American citizen completes medical school and wants to become a licensed physician, he should be shut out by a scheme to import foreigners to take his place.