Dear Deans of Georgetown and the Senior Director of Student at the AAMC,
A signature on this Letter to Congress from a Dean (Dean Mitchell), a Program Director (Dr. Whelton), and the Senior Director of Student Affairs at the AAMC (Dr. Young) would make a significant difference to the lives of thousands of US medical students, who are having our lives ruined by losing our homes, families, and futures because we cannot get a job without any sort of healthcare license number from a one-year Preliminary Year residency position.
Please try to imagine: If you had your career and your ability to be hired for a job taken away from you, after investing almost half a million dollars for a medical education:
A. Without a residency position, I do not qualify for a healthcare license number.
B. Without a license number, I cannot get a job in healthcare in the USA, other than a healthcare tech or scribe (with a wage of $15/hour).
These are the verifiable facts about me: (i.) I graduated Georgetown University School of Medicine in 2011, (ii.) I never failed any clinical/course work at Georgetown, (iii.) I earned HP/Honors in five of my last clinical courses in medical school, (iv.) I passed all of my licensing exams (USMLE Step 1, 2, and 3, (v.) since 2011, I’ve applied to over 300 residency positions in 47 states, (vi.) I have 9+ years of supplementary clinical/research experience, and (vii.) I invested $50,000+/year in student loans to pay tuition for a medical education in the USA. These student loans accrue interest at 6.7%, and are now over $460,000+. Even paying my monthly Income Driven Repayment (IDR) plan, I still accrue more than $25,000+ per year in just accrued interest.
I don’t deserve to have my life ruined, and even if my life deserves to be ruined, the lives of my family and the loved ones (who financially depend on me) don’t deserve to be ruined. I have a 2-month old daughter, and I just want to financially provide the best possible future for her. I hope for your compassion to try to help.
… and I hope for your support to address this serious flaw in policy (please see attachment, Official Statistics from the NRMP – 2020). I will keep sending letters to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC).
Respectfully,
Doug Medina, MD
Georgetown University School of Medicine.
I am not sure how trusted the New York Post (found by Hamilton) is in media circles, but I thought this was an interesting story:
“WASHINGTON — Chinese consulates in more than two dozen US cities are aiding undercover Communist Party soldiers posing as students to engage in espionage, senior government officials said Friday.
The bombshell revelation comes after two Chinese military assets at the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas, were arrested and charged Tuesday with trying to steal COVID-19 vaccine research.
“The individuals charged there are a microcosm, we believe, of a broader network of individuals in more than 25 cities,” a senior Department of Justice official said.
“That network is supported through the consulates here. Consulates have been giving individuals in that network guidance on how to evade and obstruct our investigation,” he said.
The official said the Houston bust was “merely the tip of the iceberg”…”
“I am not crazy, I’m just ahead of the curve”… It’s not unreasonable to deduce the possibility of using J-1 and H-1B visas for students (and for residency positions) to cause US students (US citizens) to lose our jobs, default on our US students loans (now, over $150 trillion), and to damage our economy in the USA.
I am not sure if the Deans of major US universities are complicit with the Educational Commission on Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG) to profit millions of dollars from this corruption (racketeering) … or are they just incompetent and don’t understand the problem?
Either way, the media is too bias and too corrupt to be Honest with their reporting on this problem. Cable news will spend thousands of hours on the BLM protests to support defunding the police … but they won’t spend one-hour reporting on a story of a corrupt (or incompetent) Educational System in the USA that is cause thousands of US medical students (US citizens) losing our jobs (careers), our families, and our Futures?
“I. The problem is binary. It’s “either-or”:
(1.) Either the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP) is falsifying their own data and publishing it in their own archive (Please see attachment, “Official Statistics from the NRMP Archive – 2020”)
(2.) Or the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) is complicit in allowing hundreds of US medical students (per year) to lose our careers, families, and futures because we cannot get a job without a license in healthcare from at least a one year Preliminary Year (residency position) in the USA … and since 2011, more than 35,000 non-US citizen IMGs have acquired jobs (residency positions) in the USA (word count – 105)” – Dr. Doug
AAMC is abdicating its responsibilities to US medical students (US citizens), who invest hundreds of thousands of dollars for a medical education, but we are losing our residency positions (jobs) to non-US citizen IMGs:
1. First, I was told that it was my fault because I was a below average medical student and I needed supplementary clinical experience … so I needed to volunteer for clinical experience in Central America because neither my medical school (Georgetown) nor the AAMC would help me with medical malpractice coverage to volunteer for clinical experience in the USA.
2. After I returned from Central America, I was told that it was my fault because I needed more research experience … so I needed to volunteer at the Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) in Buffalo, NY to publish research as a 2nd author.
3. Then, I was told that it was my fault because I needed clinical experience in the USA … so I applied for and was accepted to volunteer externship programs at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital and the VA mental health clinic in DC (and I received letters of recommendation from both of these externships).
4. Then, I was told that it was my fault because I needed work experience … so I got a job as an Intake Clinician working the graveyard at Spring Mountain Treatment Center in Las Vegas.
From 2011 – 2021, I was told that it is my fault that I didn’t match into a residency training position in the USA.
From 2012 – 2020, it took Dr. Seth Koeut more than 8 years in court (even having to take the case to appeals court against the Department of Education, who contended that Dr. Koeut had “not given his best effort to find better employment”) to win his fight to declare bankruptcy and have his credit ruined for the next 7 years.
After 10 years of supplementary clinical/research/work experience, and let’s assume it takes another 8 years of legal cases to declare bankruptcy, and then another 7 years of ruined credit:
10 years + 8 years + 7 years = this will have ruined 25 yearsof my life and the lives of my family.
At what point, is this no longer my fault?
At what point, does the AAMC (and the Department of Education) finally take responsibility for a serious flaw in policy that is ruining the lives of thousands of US medical students (and our families), who invest hundreds of thousands of dollars (in federally-subsidized student loans), but are losing jobs to non-US citizen IMGs?
This is a very serious flaw in policy. We need to keep fighting to protect the lives of thousands of US medical students (and our families). I will continue to proceed with filing a formal grievance to the AAMC, and perhaps, we need to get more governing bodies involved (the AMA and the Department of Education). – Doug
White-Collar Workers of America 