Posted on Sun, Jun. 06, 2004

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/n...8847643.htm?1c



Security checks strand doctors from abroad

Tougher scrutiny has made some late for residency and kept some from returning here after traveling.

By Gaiutra Bahadur

Inquirer Staff Writer


Muhammad Fuad Jan left his job, his wife and his toddler behind when he boarded a plane home to India in January.

The trip was meant to last only two weeks, but the second-year medical resident at Hahnemann University Hospital has been trapped in his native country ever since, caught in the cross fire of the U.S. war on terror.

The U.S. Embassy in New Delhi denied Jan permission to return, saying that his name resembled one on a watch list of criminals and suspected terrorists. Officials told him it would take a few days to resolve the matter, he said.

A few days stretched into more than four months. Jan missed interviews at hospitals eyeing him as a cardiology fellow. His daughter, Maahum, learned how to walk. And Hahnemann told his wife, Hina Mehboob, they would soon have to stop paying him.

"I understand national security but," she asked, "couldn't it have taken a little less time?"

The U.S. government finally cleared Jan on Thursday, a day after a call from The Inquirer. His predicament, however, is not unique. Security checks implemented since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks can take so long that some foreign physicians have arrived months late for their residencies.

Of the 1,133 doctors from abroad sponsored for clinical training to begin on July 1, 2003, 36 percent arrived late. Eighty of them, or 7 percent, had not arrived at all as of March 1, eight months after their scheduled start dates.

The data were collected for the first time this year by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, a Philadelphia nonprofit that sponsors all foreign physicians nationwide after hospitals agree to hire them. The data do not provide a reason why the physicians were delayed.

Pakistan, the country that sends the largest number of medical residents to the United States on training visas, had the most residents affected by delays. Only one-fourth of its citizens arrived at their hospitals on time.

A group of Pakistani physicians in the United States plans to lobby Congress this week about lengthy security clearances that, they argue, cause the delays and ultimately lead to staff shortages at some of the neediest hospitals in the United States.

"Many of these physicians man rural and inner-city hospitals where we can't find American graduates," said Omar Atiq, president of the Association of Pakistani Physicians in North America. "Not only do the delays affect the careers of the residents, they're also affecting our patient care here."

The backlog created by security checks has reportedly also prevented scores of scientists from abroad from entering the United States, slowing research on diseases such as AIDS, Alzheimer's and leukemia.

The U.S. State Department has acknowledged that laws and policy changes tightening visa restrictions after Sept. 11 have had unintended consequences. But they say they are working to alleviate the delays.

Last year, the U.S. government flagged 140,000 of its 6,500,000 visa applicants for extensive security checks, based on their country of origin or their fields of study or work. It took more than a month to approve 29,000 of those visas.

"There are a few cases that take a little longer," said Stuart Pitt, a consular affairs spokesman for the State Department. "Of the universe of visa applications, they are a very small number."

Still, that tiny percentage has created staffing problems at the hospitals, according to half a dozen medical residents interviewed in the region.

"We had some troubles," said Bachar Malek, a Hahnemann resident from Syria who has fielded e-mails from six incoming residents from Lithuania already facing delays. "Now the new guys will come late, and someone from inside the hospital will have to cover for them."

One resident said friends in medical school in Pakistan had decided to go to the United Kingdom and Ireland for their training instead.

Many already in the United States, who had heard stories about residents who go home for weddings and funerals being stranded there for months, are afraid to go back to visit their countries.

"I had a vacation but I'm not going to risk going back home," said Malek Numeir, a Hahnemann resident from Syria whose visa was approved in three weeks.

"The visa takes two weeks to forever," he said. "Nobody knows what's happening. I don't know why one person gets it fast and another doesn't."

A colleague of his from Jordan, Fateh El-Khatib, arrived in October - four months late for the first year of his residency at Hahnemann.

"It was very frustrating," El-Khatib, 27, said. "I'm off cycle now, and it may affect my opportunity to have a fellowship."

Jan has probably lost his chance for a cardiology fellowship. But the toll has mostly been the strain of being apart from his wife and his baby. Maahum, 14 months old, started to talk while he was away. She learned to say "papa" from looking at photos.

And his wife, also a medical graduate, grew so distraught she could not concentrate on studying for her own upcoming exams. Her visa bars her from working, and she worried she would not be able to pay the rent.

Hahnemann had finagled Jan's schedule so he could take his three-month research leave early. He worked at a clinic in a remote village for three months. With that now done, the hospital would have had to stop paying him. Had the State Department not cleared Jan a few days ago, the family would have had to return to Kashmir - a territory claimed by both India and Pakistan where grenades, curfews and army roundups of civilians are an ordinary part of life.

"All hope has left, and I don't know what I should do," Jan had said in a phone interview Wednesday, a day before the U.S. government cleared him.

"The agencies holding him up took a look at it and cleared him," said the State Department's Pitt, who could not say why it took months and then, after a call from a newspaper, only one day to clear him. "It's OK."

"Thank you. Thank you," said Hina Mehboob. "I'm very thankful to whoever did it."


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Contact staff writer Gaiutra Bahadur at 856-779-3923 or bahadug@phillynews.com

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I am not surprised given the conditions that exist today. Even Canadians visiting US are now experiencing closer scrutiny, much longer delays and more pullovers. It's getting to the point where my friends and I try to avoid the unpleasantness (by not visiting).