Saturday, March 26, 2011
Air raids force Gadh
‘Brain waste’ th
Cuban doctors strugg
Cuban doctors struggle to prove credentials in US - Yahoo! News
MIAMI – Roberto Carmona sneaked away from his superiors disguised as a South African cowboy. While working in Namibia, the doctor donned boots and a big hat so he could slip out to the American Embassy, where he asked about qualifying for a special program for Cuban physicians that he hoped would let him defect to the U.S.
Nearly a year later, he was accepted, just days before his overseas job ended. Carmona fled to Tampa, but escaping his homeland turned out to be the easy part.
Carmona and a number of other Cuban physicians who defected while on overseas assignments have confronted a frustrating contradiction in American medicine: They were allowed into the U.S. because they are doctors. But, once here, they cannot treat patients because Cuba has refused to release or certify their academic records.
Without transcripts, it's nearly impossible for the doctors to take the required medical board exams and to get approval from the U.S. group that accredits foreign physicians.
"To come to this country, we have to spend so much time demonstrating to U.S. immigration officials we are doctors and show them so many documents," Carmona said. "Then why is it once we are here, they don't believe us and make it so difficult for us to work in our profession?"
'Brain waste' thwarts immigrants' career dreams - Yahoo! News
NEW YORK – After finishing medical school in Bogota, Colombia, Maria Anjelica Montenegro did it all — obstetrics, pediatrics, emergency medicine, even surgery. By her estimate, she worked with thousands of patients.
None of that prepared her for the jobs she's had since she moved to the United States: Sales clerk. Babysitter. Medical assistant.
That last one definitely rubbed raw at times.
"I know I was working in my field," the 34-year-old New York resident said. "But that is medical assistant. I'm a doctor."
Montenegro is hardly unique, given the high U.S. unemployment rate these days. Her situation reflects a trend that some researchers call "brain waste" — a term applied to immigrants who were skilled professionals in their home countries, yet are stymied in their efforts to find work in the U.S. that makes full use of their education or training.
Most of these immigrants wind up underemployed because of barriers like language, lack of access to job networks, or credentialing requirements that are different from those in other countries. Some are held back even further because they're also in the U.S. illegally.
