This happens in Canada too, you just extra fucked in the US because you also have to pay up when you go to a shitty walk-in.
I wish there was an easier way for foreign doctors, nurses, and medical staff to upskill, retrain, or otherwise have their credentials recognized so that they can continue in the medical field.
I’ve spoken to so many people (and their acquaintances) who can’t afford the money or time it would take to start over to become credentialed in engineering, law, and medicine. Agreements like the Sydney Accord help, but they don’t fix the problem.
Why not improve working conditions so we aren’t losing doctors who have trained here? They’re already trained in our system
Mostly because they’re deliberately being made to leave the system so that it can be replaced by an worse American like system. For the reich to profit from.
We can do both, but Canada and the US get a lot of talented immigrants that end up working in low-wage jobs that aren’t taking full advantage of their existing skills. The system is so strained that we need a multi-pronged approach to fill in the gaps.
I’d love for residency programs to be overhauled to allow for changes to the matching system and for working hours to be reduced, if possible. I think demanding 80-hour work weeks from the least paid and least experienced doctors is a recipe for mistakes and burnout.
Not only that, but the way that visa sponsorship and the citizenship process can absolutely fuck you over is absolutely horrifying.
I have a family friend who immigrated for an engineering role at a consulting firm. The job was going really well, and he wanted to stay in the US, so he was getting ready to start the citizenship process once he hit the 5 year mark. About 6 months before the 5 year mark, the company let him go, and he had to scramble within the 60 day grace period to find a new employer who was willing to keep sponsoring his visa, or else he’d have to leave the US.
