U.S. observership programs don't allow budding physicians from carrying out duties they could otherwise do in short-term training. Photo by jennycepeda/Pixabay
March 28 (UPI) -- Medical trainees from the United States often travel abroad to train in clinical environments. But budding healthcare providers from developing and middle-income countries rarely get the same opportunities when they travel stateside.
Some U.S. healthcare professionals are exploring the legal and regulatory barriers that prevent foreign medical graduates who visit the United States from learning in a clinical educational setting. The research will appear in the April edition of Academic Medicine.
"Foreign medical graduates who want advanced, short-term clinical training from U.S. institutions so that they can provide better care in their home countries typically can only access 'observership' programs while in the United States, so named because such programs allow nothing beyond observation in clinical settings," said James Hudspeth, a researcher at Boston University and study corresponding author, in a news release.
Observership programs allow foreign medical graduates to visit medical associations or physicians groups in the United States, according to the American Medical Association. They usually last two to four weeks for each rotation or specialty. Visitors can extend their experiences by rotating between multiple specialties.
These observerships are designed to introduce foreign medical graduates to clinical settings. However, they don't allow visitors to administer medication or write orders, examine patients or document patients' records.
The U.S. State Department doesn't currently provide visas for foreign medical graduates on short-term clinical training, according to the study.
While many U.S. medical centers already host training experiences for foreign physicians, the researchers say there needs to be more. They say removing existing roadblocks for foreign doctors looking to learn in the U.S can increase important educational experiences.
Currently, only Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nevada and Ohio offer temporary licenses for foreign medical graduates to practice medicine in the short term within a clinical setting.
The researchers want to expand that to all states. They hope that ultimately the foreign medical graduates can take their new training back to their home countries and pass it along to other health professionals.
By expanding the access for foreign medical graduates to U.S. clinical settings, the researchers say they can better respond to outbreaks of Ebola, Zika, influenza, HIV and other infectious diseases in their home countries, the researchers say.
"Training physicians from both high- and low-resource areas builds local capacity for improving health and economic stability, and this potentially translates to improved worldwide health and economic security," Hudspeth said. "Bidirectional learning provides mutual gains for U.S. and foreign clinicians, institutions, and patients."
