SAB NewsGeography Drives Distrust in the Medical ProfessionPosted 1/5/2004 Slightly over half of the 385 respondents to a recent Science Advisory Board Instant Poll worry that medical personnel from other countries hired to fill vacancies in the respondent’s own country would be ill equipped for their jobs. Most concerning to these individuals would be the professional qualifications of the foreign lab technicians, nurses, and physicians. “Despite this emphatic response, I think that it is unclear whether this fear is due to the belief that the immigrants would not have comparable education to the medical personnel trained within the country or that the immigrants’ credentials would be difficult to substantiate,” observes Tamara Zemlo, Ph.D., MPH, Director of The Science Advisory Board. Regardless of the rationale, these Instant Poll participants would not support initiatives to recruit medical personnel from other countries to fill a staffing shortage in their own country. Of the remaining 184 respondents, 29% have a more altruistic focus and are troubled that such recruitment would adversely affect the targeted countries by draining their medical resources. The remaining 19% expressed fears that recruiting foreign-trained lab technicians, nurses and doctors would result in increased security and immigration concerns. As countries struggle to meet the health care needs of their citizens, these opinions of the biomedical community should be considered in future policy discussions regarding medical personnel shortages. |
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