‘Fewer Muslim students in US’

THE number of foreign medical graduates from Muslim-majority countries coming to the United States to become doctors has declined by 15 per cent under the Trump administration, exacerbating shortages in America’s physician workforce, a study said on Monday (6).

International medical graduates represent about a quarter of practising doctors in the US. They are required to take several licensing exams and then complete two or three years of training to practise medicine in the United States.

Overall, citizens from Muslim-majority nations made up 4.5 per cent of the US physician workforce in 2019, with Pakistan, Egypt and Iran historically providing the bulk.

The number of graduates from Islamic nations applying for certification in the US rose from 2009-2015, peaking at 4,244, before falling steadily to 3,604 in 2018 – a decline of 15 per cent.

A small drop occurred in 2016, the year in which Trump was elected but his predecessor Barack Obama was still in office, before hastening in 2017 and 2018.