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I've worked in medicine for 22 years as a medical transcriptionist. When I started out, in 1981, foreign doctors were sort of an anomaly. Now, there are almost as many foreign doctors as there are American doctors practicing in the U.S. And it's only taken a little over 20 years for that to happen. In fact, one hospital in particular that I worked for at one time in Southern California had almost NO American doctors on staff. They were all foreigners. A couple of hundred of them. Also, I understand that if the FTAA treaty finally gets hammered out and passed, one of the provisions being pushed for is to allow ANY medical doctor from ANY South American country to practice medicine in the U.S. without being subjected to U.S. testing and/or licensing. That is downright scary.

Also, there's a big push among some of the congressional critters (IIRC Sen. Sam Brownback in particular) to bring in foreign nurses on visas, supposedly to take care of the projected nursing shortage that is supposed to take place in the future. This will not bode well for anyone considering a career in nursing.