title: General surgery residency after graduation from U.S. medical schools: visa-related challenges for the international citizen.
abstract: International-United States medical graduates (I-USMGs) are non-US citizen graduates of U.S. medical schools. Although academically equivalent to US-citizen peers, they are subject to the same visa requirements as non-US citizen international medical graduates. We hypothesized that visa sponsorship policies of general surgery programs (GSPs) may be discordant with the enrollment patterns of I-USMGs. A total of 196 GSPs participated in a telephone survey regarding visa sponsorship policies. Whereas GSPs preferred J-1 to H-1B sponsorship (64.2% vs. 32.6%), I-USMG enrollment favored programs supporting H-1B sponsorship (72.1% vs. 7.5%) (P = .01). University-affiliated programs were more likely to sponsor H1-Bs than independent programs (39.6% vs. 24.4%) (P = .03) and trained a greater proportion of I-USMGs than independent programs (40.6% vs. 14.0%) (P < .01). Restrictive policies against H-1B sponsorship may limit GSPs' I-USMG applicant pool and restrict I-USMGs' surgical training options.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Surgery, University of Pennsylvania Health System, Philadelphia, USA.
authors.forename: Jashodeep
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Datta
authors.forename: Victor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Zaydfudim
authors.forename: Kyla P
authors.initials: KP
authors.lastname: Terhune
mesh_terms: D005550:Foreign Medical Graduates; D013502:General Surgery / Q000193:education*; D038622:Internationality; D007396:Internship and Residency; D014481:United States