Nearly 1 in 3 US physicians were born abroad

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Nearly 1 in 3 US physicians were born abroad December 5, 2018
by Marie Mccullough
December 5, 2018

At a time when immigration is a hot-button issue, the American health care system is highly dependent on professionals born in other countries, an analysis of U.S. census data shows.

In 2016, roughly 17 percent of professionals in 24 medical fields—from optometrists to chiropractors to veterinarians—were foreign-born, and almost 5 percent of them were not U.S. citizens, according to the analysis published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The analysis could not distinguish between professionals trained in their country of origin and those trained in the United States.

The rates were even higher for the most educated providers. About one in five pharmacists, one in four dentists, and 29 percent of physicians—approaching one in three—were foreign-born.

Among one of the biggest occupational groups—psychiatric, nursing and home health aides—23 percent were foreign-born.

"We rely very heavily in health care on those who were born abroad,"

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Our domestic MD shortage is a product of Federal Government policies limiting numbers of US Resident training slots. Those have been in place since the Clinton Administration. The Clinton thesis was, less MDs availability equals lower access and therefore lower healthcare costs.

A side-effect was longer hours for MDs diverting further their involvement in medical administration.set up their loss of control or input when the ACA came along.

A great example of this is is the largest hospital in Charlotte recently removing board certification or even board eligibility as a requisite for practice.

Yes, it's getting bad.