(from the April 2020 ACP Hospitalist)
By Stacey Butterfield
Concerns about visas and residency add to pressures of hospitalist practice.
Many of the hospitalists preparing community hospitals to face the COVID-19 pandemic ace an additional challenge: their lack of permanent residency or citizenship in the U.S.
“The community hospitalists or rural hospitalists are mostly international physicians, physicians on a J-1 or a H-1B visa. The majority of the physicians are from countries of backlog that have been waiting for permanent residency for many years, like myself; this will be my 10th year on a work permit,” said Varun Malayala, MD, FACP, chair of medicine at Bayhealth Sussex Campus in Milford, Del.
Sixty-nine percent of international medical graduate (IMG) physicians practicing on visas were working in rural areas, according to a recent survey by Dr. Malayala and colleagues. Their analysis, which was accepted as a poster at Internal Medicine Meeting 2020, included 1,232 physicians, almost all of whom reported that their visa status affected their career options.
Read the full article in ACP Hospitalist.
ACP Hospitalist provides news and information for hospitalists, covering the major issues in the field.