Hospitals are suddenly short of young doctors because of visa ban
Part of the problem is the unnecessarily long path to becoming a doctor in the US. It takes 4 years longer in the US, compared to UK, to become a doctor.In the US medical school is a graduate program, which means students must obtain a bachelor’s degree before going on to medical school. The subjects US students study vary: earning a “pre-med” degree is not necessarily required to qualify for medical school. In fact, medical students can and do major in everything from mathematics to physics, even music!Becoming a doctor in the US takes a minimum of 11 years: 4 years to obtain an undergraduate degree, followed by 4 years to complete medical school then 3 years of residency.Compare that to UK: There the study of medicine starts at the undergraduate level. After spending between 5 years in medical school, students earn their bachelor’s degree and enter the workforce as junior doctors. They then spend 2 years in the “foundation programme,” which is intended to reinforce what they have learned at the university in a professional environment. That's a total of 7 years to become a doctor in the UK.The difference is the 4 years US students spend obtaining an undergraduate degree before starting medical school. This seems wasteful. Eliminating this requirement will reduce the amount of debt medical students accumulate, and encourage more people to become doctors.