Vasireddy Deepa, Malayala Srikrishna Varun, Atluri Paavani, Gupta Deepika
Department of Pediatrics, Pediatric Group of Acadiana, Lafayette, LA, USA.
Department of Medicine, Jeanes Campus - Temple University Hospital, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
J Clin Med Res. 2021 Jan;13(1):20-25. doi: 10.14740/jocmr4403. Epub 2021 Jan 12.
Pediatrician shortage and healthcare access has been a serious issue especially in medically underserved and rural areas aplenty in the USA and has further worsened during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Many US trained international medical graduates (IMGs) on a visa status serve these areas to fill in the physician gap. These physicians are usually on a visa and the majority of them have approved immigration petitions. During this pandemic, the sudden changes in immigration policies in addition to the longstanding administrative backlog and processing times had posed new challenges to the pediatricians and the communities served by them. The objective of this study was to determine the demographics, level of training and practice, immigration status, the clinical role they played in the communities they served and the various professional and personal setbacks they faced during the pandemic.
A survey was created and data were collected using data collection platform "Survey Monkey". Screening questions were designed to include only IMG pediatricians on a visa status.
A total of 267 IMG pediatricians qualified for the survey on a nationwide basis. Of the physicians that participated in the survey, 58.4% were working in either medically underserved or physician shortage areas, 36% of the total physicians were working in a rural setting, 10.6% of the pediatricians had to be quarantined due to exposure to COVID-19, 0.8% were infected with COVID-19 themselves, and 81.3% of the pediatricians had faced hindrance in being able to work at a COVID-19 hotspot due to work site restrictions because of their visa status.
IMG pediatricians play a valuable role in taking care of the children in medically underserved areas. The challenges surrounding the immigration backlog are contributing to significant hardships for these pediatricians and their families and are causing a hindrance to healthcare access to the children in medically underserved communities during the pandemic especially limiting the pediatricians' scope and geographic radius of the practice, thus not allowing them to practice to the full extent of their license.
儿科医生短缺以及医疗服务可及性一直是个严重问题，在美国，尤其是在大量医疗服务欠缺的农村地区，而在2019冠状病毒病（COVID-19）大流行期间情况进一步恶化。许多持签证身份的在美国接受培训的国际医学毕业生（IMG）服务于这些地区以填补医生缺口。这些医生通常持有签证，并且他们中的大多数人有获批的移民申请。在这次大流行期间，移民政策的突然变化，再加上长期存在的行政积压和处理时间，给儿科医生及其服务的社区带来了新的挑战。本研究的目的是确定这些儿科医生的人口统计学特征、培训和实践水平、移民身份、他们在服务社区中所扮演的临床角色以及他们在大流行期间面临的各种专业和个人挫折。
创建了一项调查，并使用数据收集平台“Survey Monkey”收集数据。筛选问题设计为仅包括持签证身份的IMG儿科医生。
全国共有267名IMG儿科医生符合调查条件。参与调查的医生中，58.4%在医疗服务欠缺或医生短缺地区工作，占总医生数36%的医生在农村地区工作，10.6%的儿科医生因接触COVID-19而被隔离，0.8%的医生自身感染了COVID-19，并且81.3%的儿科医生由于其签证身份导致工作地点限制，在前往COVID-19热点地区工作时面临阻碍。
IMG儿科医生在照顾医疗服务欠缺地区的儿童方面发挥着重要作用。围绕移民积压的挑战给这些儿科医生及其家庭带来了巨大困难，并在大流行期间阻碍了医疗服务欠缺社区儿童获得医疗服务，特别是限制了儿科医生的执业范围和地理半径，从而使他们无法充分发挥其执照允许的执业范围。
