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The US Distribution of Physicians from Lower Income Countries
INTRODUCTION: Since the 1960 s, the number of international medical graduates (IMGs) in the United States has increased significantly. Given concerns regarding the effects of this loss to their countries of origin, the authors undertook a study of IMGs from lower income countries currently practicin...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Public Library of Science
2012
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3310056/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22457735 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033076 |
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author | Torrey, E. Fuller Torrey, Barbara Boyle |
author_facet | Torrey, E. Fuller Torrey, Barbara Boyle |
author_sort | Torrey, E. Fuller |
collection | PubMed |
description | INTRODUCTION: Since the 1960 s, the number of international medical graduates (IMGs) in the United States has increased significantly. Given concerns regarding the effects of this loss to their countries of origin, the authors undertook a study of IMGs from lower income countries currently practicing in the United States. METHODS: The AMA Physician Masterfile was accessed to identify all 265,851 IMGs in active practice in the United States. These were divided by state of practice and country of origin. World Bank income classification was used to identify lower income countries. RESULTS: 128,729 IMGs were identified from 53 lower income countries, constituting 15 percent of the US active physician workforce. As a percentage of the workforce, West Virginia (29%), New Jersey (27%), and Michigan (26%) had the most IMGs from lower income countries, and Montana, Idaho, and Alaska (all less than 2%), the least. The countries with the greatest loss of physicians to the United States per 100,000 population were the Philippines, Syria, Jordan, and Haiti. DISCUSSION: The reliance of US medicine on physicians from lower income countries is beneficial to the United States both clinically and economically. However, it results in a loss of the lower income country's investment in the IMG's education. We discuss possible mechanisms to compensate the lower income countries for the medical education costs of their physicians who immigrate to the US. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3310056 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2012 |
publisher | Public Library of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-33100562012-03-28 The US Distribution of Physicians from Lower Income Countries Torrey, E. Fuller Torrey, Barbara Boyle PLoS One Research Article INTRODUCTION: Since the 1960 s, the number of international medical graduates (IMGs) in the United States has increased significantly. Given concerns regarding the effects of this loss to their countries of origin, the authors undertook a study of IMGs from lower income countries currently practicing in the United States. METHODS: The AMA Physician Masterfile was accessed to identify all 265,851 IMGs in active practice in the United States. These were divided by state of practice and country of origin. World Bank income classification was used to identify lower income countries. RESULTS: 128,729 IMGs were identified from 53 lower income countries, constituting 15 percent of the US active physician workforce. As a percentage of the workforce, West Virginia (29%), New Jersey (27%), and Michigan (26%) had the most IMGs from lower income countries, and Montana, Idaho, and Alaska (all less than 2%), the least. The countries with the greatest loss of physicians to the United States per 100,000 population were the Philippines, Syria, Jordan, and Haiti. DISCUSSION: The reliance of US medicine on physicians from lower income countries is beneficial to the United States both clinically and economically. However, it results in a loss of the lower income country's investment in the IMG's education. We discuss possible mechanisms to compensate the lower income countries for the medical education costs of their physicians who immigrate to the US. Public Library of Science 2012-03-21 /pmc/articles/PMC3310056/ /pubmed/22457735 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033076 Text en Torrey, Torrey. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Torrey, E. Fuller Torrey, Barbara Boyle The US Distribution of Physicians from Lower Income Countries |
title | The US Distribution of Physicians from Lower Income Countries |
title_full | The US Distribution of Physicians from Lower Income Countries |
title_fullStr | The US Distribution of Physicians from Lower Income Countries |
title_full_unstemmed | The US Distribution of Physicians from Lower Income Countries |
title_short | The US Distribution of Physicians from Lower Income Countries |
title_sort | us distribution of physicians from lower income countries |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3310056/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22457735 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0033076 |
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