I am an American-born medical graduate who has been unmatched since 2015. Many interviews for residency have had an unspoken discrimination, however, one program was very forthcoming of their out right discrimination toward American graduates. The entire interview I had to defend how culturally diverse I was. The assistant professor at a Midwest residency program states “we are very diverse; Out of the 6 residents that matriculate each year we only accept one American.” He proceeded to ask me if I would be comfortable working with a primarily foreign residency population consisting of mostly Indian and Pakistani physicians. He also pointed out they had one Chinese and one American resident boasting to the cultural diversity of the program. After insinuating that I did not have the correct cultural lineage to be a good fit for the program he proceeded to ask if I could handle working with a mostly black patient population. I explained that I went to a Caribbean Medical school and worked with black patients during health fairs, additionally I pointed out that my home state of California has a very diverse population of Mongolian, Native American, Mexican, and African American.
The psychologist of the program stated that the best part of her job is “to help the foreign doctors to communicate with this patient population.” She had a condescending attitude toward the American patient population for having difficulty understanding the foreign doctors. She also bragged about how she married one of the foreign residents who at the time barely spoke English.
Many programs took down their resident profiles, which makes it hard to see that they are all foreign. Grand rapids MI always take 4 or 5 residents from a specific school in Pakistan because the assistant program director came from that school. Oklahoma IM only takes Pakistani students. University of Texas in Lubbock has 13 residents all are visas requiring except three. They usually take Thailand students. Many of the programs in IL, MI, OH, and New York only choose foreign applicants. They tell everyone that AMGs do not apply but the truth is they will not accept them.
Sincerely,
LL MD
White-Collar Workers of America 