http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-karr14mar14,0,3153798.story
I saw Ray Rickman, Co-Founder & President of the NGO Adopt A Doctor, speak today at my medical school about an interesting phenomenon: doctor stealing. Apparently, the U.S., Britain, Canada, and several other developed countries recruit doctors from poor countries to deal with their own doctor shortages, leaving practically no one to care for their home communities.
He (and his one other admin. volunteer) is trying to encourage foreign doctors from poor countries to stay in their home communities to take care of their local populations. He does this by sending them a small monthly stipend to lift the doctors, themselves, out of poverty so they have the energy and willpower to stay home and work hard for the sick. Many of these doctors are foreign trained and are able to leave at anytime to work in other countries and increase their income from around $800/year to over $100,000/year abroad. The doctors that choose to stay are amazing people and choose to serve their people, despite living in poverty with their families. Adopt A Doctor merely supplements their meager income in exchange for a contractual agreement to stay in their home communities for 7 years. Last year, the organization only spent $1000 on admin costs so you can be assured that most of the money you donate will go straight to these doctors.
Learn more and consider donating to Adopt A Doctor @ http://www.adoptadoctor.org/
or contact me as we are doing a fundraiser.
One other solution to this problem is ensuring that the United States has enough medical school spots to fullfill its own needs and meet the number of residency slots we have available....
Wait?! What?! Thats what Osteopathic schools around the country are doing right now? New schools? Expanding the number of doctors and emphasizing primary care? Well, who knew...
More articles:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/27/international/27brain.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/325/7355/65/a
