USIMG's JumboTweets
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Let me be a doctor
Why We Have Enough US Citizens to become physicians in the USA without having to employ foreign nationals
What the ACGME, USMLE, AMA, AAMC, ECFMG and ERAS Don’t Want You To Know
On January 27th 2017 President Donald J Trump signed an executive order enacting a temporary refugee ban from seven countries previously on the terrorist watch list, initially put together by the Obama administration. Since its enactment, one of the many ramifications that has gained notoriety by various mainstream media outlets has been the assertion that these immigration restrictions would adversely impact our healthcare system, by making it more difficult for foreign-born medical graduates to be accepted to residency training in our country, leaving many residency spots unfilled and worsening our current national physician shortage.
This assertion, however, is false. In fact, we have a minimum of 3,000 U.S.-citizen medical school graduates who have not been able to gain employment for several years. The National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), the system through which United States and international medical school graduates obtain residency positions in U.S.-accredited training programs, announced the results of the 2016 Main Residency Match (referred hereinafter and colloquially as “the Match”) as the largest application pool on record, encompassing 42,370 registered applicants and 30,750 positions. Among US allopathic medical school graduates, there were 18,668 seniors who applied for 27,860 first year post-graduate training (PGY-1) positions Of those, 18,187 applicants submitted program choices and 17,057 matched to first-year positions, leaving a pool of 1,130 applicants who did not match into residency. That statistic failed to include U.S. allopathic students who have re-applied after failing to match previous years, which amounted to 1,502 applicants. The NRMP also failed to include applicants of Osteopathic medical schools, which make up 2,982 applicants who also apply to ACGME residency programs.
Out of the 5,323 U.S. citizen international medical school graduates (USIMG’s) who submitted program preferences, 2,869 (53.9%) applicants were matched to first-year positions leaving 2,454 USIMG’s unemployed. NRMP reported that the number of non-U.S. citizen IMGs increased to 7,460 applicants. Of the 7,460 IMG participants who were not U.S. citizens, 3,769 (50.5%) matched(ECFMG).
Let's do the math with the numbers we were given, even though those numbers do not accurately account for applicants who apply to residency positions solely using ERAS, which are the real application pool. We have a total of 30,750 first-year residency spots. If we matched every AMG ( american medical graduate); 18,668 previously graduated AMG, 1,502 D.O. graduates (Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine) and 2,982 AMG’s, that would leave 7,598 open positions. ( not understading the data here, we should enter a math diagram here) . If 5,323 USIMGs matched, 2,275 unfilled positions would still be available. . However, this probably is not the case since many more applicants who are U.S. citizens and non- U.S. citizens IMGs actually apply to residency and do not receive interviews.
The real numbers can be calculated through ERAS. The Electronic Residency Application Service, abbreviated ERAS, is a service of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) through which M.D. and D.O. graduates of medical schools apply to residency and fellowship programs in the United States. It transmits applications, letters of recommendation (LoRs), Medical Student Performance Evaluations (MSPEs), medical school transcripts, USMLE transcripts, COMLEX transcripts, and other supporting credentials from applicants and their designated dean's office to residency program... <<<<<< N.B from Jumbotweet: auto-truncated at 4K characters on index page - Click here or on the "view" link to see entire jumbotweet! http://www.jumbotweet.com/ltweets/view/178942 - -- Too late, this Jumbotweet has auto-destructed --