‘Cheap Labor’: If Refugee Physicians Can Be Given Temporary Licenses During Covid Then It’s Time to Recognize Overseas Doctors’ Training. Period.

I am tired of being a refugee. I am tired of worrying about this question:

Is it time for me to stop chasing a dream that will never come true in America, the beautiful, which has been unwilling to recognize my education and experience as an international physician?

I hope not. I am a surgical pathologist from Baghdad, Iraq. I have been practicing medicine for more than 10 years, and I desperately want to be able to practice as a physician in the U.S., where I have resided since 2014.

But for the last 5 years I have been working in a medical lab in northern New Jersey. I am a specialist but work under the title of “assistant,” and I’m paid minimum wage, even though I am a fully trained physician and can easily do the job of one.

I used to think cheap labor was limited to certain countries in the third world. I never thought one day I would be that cheap labor in a first world country.

It is time to consider people like me and make a change to the system.

Today, I need answers to my questions:

Why are the credential evaluation service organizations unable to recognize my educational qualifications?

Is the system just failing or is it corrupt?

Why can a physician’s assistant or a nurse practitioner prescribe and treat American patients after finishing two-year specialized programs, but internationally trained physicians who have more than 10 years of practical experience cannot?

The American people deserve better service than this. There are still so many underserved areas where crucial clinical services are not available locally. This is despite thousands of  overseas doctors ending up in those remote communities in order to fulfil visa requirements on the long road to qualifying for a Green Card.

Image courtesy of Herb Scribner of Deseret News

Why are other countries — like Canada, Australia and the U.K. — able to recognize the training of specialist physicians, while the U.S. will not?

I feel insulted when U.S.-licensed physicians treat me as less because I don't have the same license. Working side by side with licensed doctors makes me ask, “What makes these doctors so unique?”

My answer is “nothing.” Many of them are smart, well-trained and dedicated professionals, but so am I. As are my fellow physicians who were trained internationally. Having good doctors to treat patients is what really matters — not money or business.

Why did you give internationally educated physicians like myself temporary medical licenses during the pandemic for six months but not allow us to continue to practice long-term? Why did you give us hope, then kill it?

Before the pandemic, I had almost given up and gotten used to being treated unfairly. I was so saddened to see this treatment from a country that champions human rights!

But then I was issued a temporary license and called upon to help during the pandemic. During the height of the pandemic, me and my husband worked on the frontline and sacrificed our families by exposing ourselves, my kids and my 78-year-old mother to the risk of the virus.

After years of perpetuating the misconception that international licenses are somehow less valuable I had hope again. But today I worry it was all for naught. My temporary license expired in February, and I rightfully asked for a permanent license, but the request was rejected because I didn't meet the requirements of the old regulations, which were placed in 1991. 

These regulations need an update and it should be suitable for what the nation is going through.

Based on my training from my country of origin, I was able to support America’s society in its hour of need. It is now time for policy-makers to support refugees and overseas doctors like me to make us feel valued and welcome in this country.

To whom it may concern: I am tired of being a refugee. I am tired of chasing a dream that feels like it will never come true. All I am asking for is justice. All I am asking for is relief.

Lubab Al-Quraishi is the Refugee Congress Delegate for New Jersey. During the pandemic, she has been volunteering on the front lines to do COVID testing. She received a temporary license to practice medicine and wants to return to working as a doctor full-time.