The care of foreigners : how immigrant physicians changed US healthcare / Eram Alam.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Alam, Eram, author.

Contributor:

Johns Hopkins University. Press, publisher.

Series:

Global studies in medicine, science, race, and colonialism

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Foreign workers--United States--History.

Foreign workers.

Physicians--United States--History.

Physicians.

United States--Emigration and immigration--History.

United States.

Physician and patient--United States.

Physician and patient.

Foreign Medical Graduates--supply & distribution.

Foreign Medical Graduates--history.

Emigration and Immigration--history.

Physician-Patient Relations.

History, 20th Century.

History, 21st Century.

Asia--ethnology.

Medical Subjects:

Foreign Medical Graduates--supply & distribution.

Foreign Medical Graduates--history.

Emigration and Immigration--history.

Physician-Patient Relations.

History, 20th Century.

History, 21st Century.

United States.

Asia--ethnology.

Physical Description:

xi, 209 pages ; 23 cm

Other Title:

Care of foreigners : how immigrant physicians changed United States health care

Place of Publication:

Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, [2025]

Summary:

"For more than 60 years, the United States has trained fewer physicians than it needs, relying instead on the economically expedient option of soliciting immigrant physicians trained at the expense of other countries. In The Care of Foreigners, Eram Alam examines this migratory dynamic that began during the Cold War. The passage of the Hart-Celler Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 expedited the entry of foreign medical graduates (FMGs) from postcolonial South Asia and sent them to provide care in shortage areas throughout the United States. Although this arrangement was conceived as temporary, over the decades it has become a permanent fixture of the medical system, with FMGs comprising at least a quarter of the physician labor force since the act became law. This cohort of practitioners has not been extensively studied, rendering the impacts of immigration and foreign policy on the everyday mechanics of US health care obscure. Alam foregrounds global dynamics embedded in the medical system to ask how and why Asian physicians - and especially practitioners from South Asia - have become integral to US medical practice and ubiquitous in the US public imaginary. Drawing on transcripts of congressional hearings; medical, scientific, and social scientific literature; ethnographies; oral histories; and popular media, Alam explores the enduring consequences of postcolonial physician migration. Combining theoretical and methodological insights from a range of disciplines, this book analyzes both the care provided by immigrant physicians as well as the care extended to them as foreigners." -- back cover

Contents:

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction : the care of foreigners

Importing a solution

Documenting difference

First contact

Political branding

Brand placements

Epilogue : America's solvable crisis

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Subjects: Health & Medicine; History; History of Medicine; History of Science; History (General).

Includes publisher's advertisements ([1] page, at end).

Includes bibliographical references (on pages [165]-201) and an index (on pages [203]-209).

ISBN:

9781421452784

1421452782

OCLC:

1495043608