Doctors Trained Outside The U.S. Making An Impact In Brooklyn

BROOKLYN, NY — At a time when physicians and other medical professionals are being placed on the frontlines perhaps more than ever before in recent memory, where they are being educated before being placed as hospital residents in Brooklyn may be shocking.

According to the American Immigration Council, 78.9 percent of the 1,506 doctors working in the Bronx have been trained at international medical schools as were nearly 40 percent of physicians working across New York. International schools such as St. George’s University in Grenada, West Indies are sending medical school graduates back to the United States to begin residencies and ultimately begin full-time work. Over the past four years, St. George’s has placed 454 graduates into residency programs across nine hospitals in Brooklyn with medical professionals filling roles as emergency medicine, surgery, anesthesiology and pediatrics. This year alone, 126 graduates of the school will be placed in Brooklyn-based residency programs.

Now, at a time when the coronavirus pandemic has flooded local hospitals with patients who have tested positive and when there is a shortage of doctors, internationally trained medical professionals have become an integral part of the workplace as graduates who grew up in the United States – and more specifically New York – are returning to their communities looking to make a difference.

“I think that is a huge motivation for the students that we get,” said Dr. Richard Liebowitz, a Brooklyn native and the Vice Chancellor at St. George’s.

He added: “Now, we are seeing how critically important it is to have an adequate number of physicians and equipment to take care of the huge number of patients that have been admitted to hospitals.”

Liebowitz, the past president of New York Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital, said that a disconnect exists between prospective doctors and the spots actually available in U.S.-based medical schools. According to projections, the U.S. will be more than 100,000 physicians of what is needed by 2030, which makes the need for more educational options for qualified medical students even more critical as U.S.-based medical schools do not have enough spots in incoming classes to allow admission to qualified students.

“International schools fill a huge void and I think the key thing is finding the international school that has the quality of the U.S. school,” Liebowitz said.

St. George’s is the second-largest provider of practicing doctors in the United States, according to data compiled by the Federation of State Medical Boards. Across the country, international school graduates represent nearly a quarter of working doctors, which, Liebowitz said, demonstrates the quality of education that students are receiving outside of the U.S.

International schools like St. George’s work off an integrated curriculum and use the same training methods as schools in the U.S. employ. Graduates must pass the same licensing exams if graduates wish to return to the United States and according to Liebowitz, students at St. George’s are matching the passing rate of licensing exams as medical schools inside the U.S.

As part of their training, medical students are being prepared to handle specific tasks as it relates to pandemics and specifically, the coronavirus, Liebowitz said. St. George’s has offered a five-week online course in dealing with coronavirus, but also trains students to understand the impacts of a pandemic, whether they be economically and socially as well as the mental health stresses patients may experience.

As future physicians look to give back to their communities, an international university’s ability to place them back in a place like Brooklyn often ends up making a difference, Liebowitz said, citing research that has been done in relation to cultural studies.

“When patients can look at physicians that look like them and when they are culturally attuned, you actually get better outcomes,” he said. “Being culturally diverse is something that is a particular strength of ours. (Diversity) is something that makes Brooklyn be Brooklyn.”