http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...how/930042.cms

The Economic Times Online
Printed from economictimes.indiatimes.com > Politics/Nation
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US wants 'foreign' docs to stay on
URMI A GOSWAMI

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2004 12:30:37 AM]
NEW DELHI: Things are looking up for Indian medical students in the US. The US Congress has passed an Act (S.2302) to improve access to physicians in medically underserved areas.

More importantly, foreign nationals who have served their waiver period will be exempt from the H-1B annual cap , when they apply for a change of visa status.

The Act reauthorises the programme to allow foreign nationals who complete medical school in the US to stay on if they agree to work as physicians in rural and underserved areas.

Currently, foreign physicians have to return to their home countries for at least two years after completing their course of study. The existing visa waiver programme allows them to stay on and work in areas where medical help is inadequate.

However, the number of such waivers have been few. The Act increases the numbers through a variety of exemptions, keeping in mind the acute shortage of doctors.

The Act has extend the waiver programme by two years up to ’06. Unlike the existing waiver programme which is limited to the practice of primary care, the present Act includes speciality care as well.


This will increase the ambit of doctors who can apply for the waiver programme.

A report by the Council on Graduate Medical education found that problems of access to medical care persist in rural and inner-city areas despite large increases in the number of physicians in the US.

Factors to this scarcity are problems of access, including economic and social circumstances of rural and inner-city areas as well as the shortage of minority and generalist physicians.

The report concludes that "Minority physicians and physicians in the three primary care specialties (family practice, general internal medicine, and general pediatrics) are more likely to serve inner-city populations."

It is these areas that could attract foreign physicians as well. In this context, Moran bill seeks to ensure that areas presently suffering from lack of general physicians do not reach a crisis stage.



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