1668 



quality of medical education in the LDCs from which most FMGs 

 have come in recent years is considerably inferior to that of U.S. 

 medical schools. FMGs as a group achieve much lower scores on 

 ■medical practice qualifying examinations than do graduates of U.S. 

 schools, and FMGs who pass the examinations tend to do so margin- 

 ally. Not all FMGs succeed in getting licenses to practice in the 

 United States, but many thousands do and others find employment 

 (in mental hospitals, psychiatric wards in prisons, and institutions 

 for the mentally retarded, for example) without full credentials. By 

 their sheer numbers they have made it less necessary for American 

 medical schools, in order to meet the growing demand for doctors in 

 the United States, to expand their facilities to accommodate more 

 American premedical students. ^*^ Thus many of the latter who meet 

 the entrance requirements are turned away each year, while thousands 

 of FMGs with inferior training enter the medical profession in the 

 United States. 



THE BRAIN DRAIN AS AN INTERNATIONAL ISSUE 



The general problem of the brain drain became an international 

 issue in the mid-1960s. In 1966, Assistant Secretary of State for 

 Educational and Cultural Affairs Charles Frankel called it "one of the 

 steady, trying, troublesome diplomatic issues" with which the U.S. 

 Government was confronted, and added that many countries regularly 

 raised the brain drain issue with the United States.^^^ Another observer 

 notes that: 



In the United Nations, delegates from the LDCs accused the West of trans- 

 ferring its exploitative urges from physical to human resources. On one occasion 

 the representative from Dahomey called it an "odious bleeding" of Africa, a 

 continuation of the slave trade. The General Assembly, where the presence of the 

 LDCs is most forcofullj' felt, passed a resolution acknowledging the seriousness 

 of the problem and expressing grave concern. 



In 1966, the Iranian Minister in charge of Cultural Affairs at Iran's Embassy 

 in Washington complained to American foreign student advisers about the 

 drainoff of Iranian students (some 60 percent) studying in the United States. 

 "Our government," he wrote, "is now thoroughly alarmed at the very high 

 casualty rate of these skilled young people and is pressing us to take effective 

 countermeasures. " 



So concerned has the Indian Government become about the loss of its doctors 

 that it has taken administrative action to discourage emigration. . . ."' 



The volume of complaints about brain drain received by the State 

 Department from LDC governments ha'^ grown in recent years. In 

 Sei)tember 1978 an observer commented that a sign that the problem 

 was becoming increasingly serious was "the pressure put on our 

 State Department by about SO countries which have asked that we 

 send students skilled in essential fields back home when their programs 

 are over,^" and not encourage them to study sophisticated subjects, 

 such as psychiatry, for which there is not yet a need where they come 

 from." In February 1974 Deput}^ Assistant Secretary for Education 



"9 During the period 1962-1971, the number of FMGs entering the United States was almost as great as 

 the number of students graduated from American medical s'-hools: 75,639 as compared with 77,867. (For a 

 detailed discussion of the FMG problem, see ibid., pp. 1219-1247. 



2" Ibid., p. 130.5. 



251 Jhid. 



"2 One of the complications attending the return of students to their native countries, as the study points 

 ■out, is that the LDCs often do not have employment opportunities for educated specialists. 



