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1. 

   Dreidel

   February 26, 2016

   The “prove yourself again” rule was in full effect when I was a medical intern in 1971. (At that time , a year-long “internship” was REQUIRED for all newly graduated M.D.’s first post-graduate year, in order to get a state medical license, before you could enter private practice or proceed into specialty “residency” training.)

   If you’d just graduated from a U.S. medical school with a newly-minted M.D. diploma in hand, U.S. hospitals with internship training programs PAID American interns for the year’s work — not much, but you didn’t need much $$, because the hospital provided you with food, clothing, and shelter, didn’t give you any free time to waste your money, and had plenty of eager young nurses around who attended to your other needs!

   BUT if you were a fully trained immigrant physician from another country, you not only had to take an “internship” year like a beginner right out of medical school — you had to PAY the hospital for the privilege of doing the same work that the brand-new U.S. physicians were being PAID at least a pittance for. Then after your “internship” year was over, you still had to spend 3-4 years in a specialty residency program if you wanted to take the American boards in your specialty. But at least doing those final 3-4 years, you were treated like a first-time American resident in the program, getting the same meager wages.

   After the immigrant doctor had finished all that, he/she could finally resume the high-level medical speciality skills that he/she had practiced in the old country.

   I knew MANY foreign physicians who assured me that the repetitive process was worth it!

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