As the Trump administration decides if and how it will move forward with President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration and travel, concerns about how the order could affect the physician shortage continue to rise.
Many foreign-born physicians come to the U.S. for medical school on J1 visas, according to NPR. After completing their training, these physicians have two options. They can either return to their home country or work for three years in an area that has a physician shortage. As a result, many of the providers who choose to work in chronically underserved regions of the U.S. are foreigners.
"International medical graduates have been a resource to provide medical care to areas that don't otherwise have access to physicians," said Andrew Gurman, MD, president of the American Medical Association. "With the current uncertainty about those physicians' immigration status, we don't know whether or not these areas are going to receive care."
According to data from the AMA cited by NPR, there are about 280,000 international medical graduates in the U.S., accounting for about 25 percent of practicing physicians. Although some are U.S. citizens who studied medicine abroad, most aren't, according to the report.
"They don't all have permanent visas, and so a lot of them are concerned about what their status is going to be, whether they can stay, whether they can go home to visit family and still come back, and the communities they serve have similar questions," Dr. Gurman told NPR.