Foreign nationals who wish to attend medical school and/or practice medicine in the United States have a number of avenues available to them through U.S. immigration. In this brief article we will discuss the F-1 and J-1 student visas, as well as H-1B professional worker visa.
In order to practice medicine in the United States, a physician must graduate from medical school, complete a U.S. residency program, and pass licensing examinations. If you are a foreign national who wishes to attend medical school in the U.S., you can do so under an F-1 student visa. This visa allows you to stay in the U.S. so long as you are enrolled full-time in medical school and for up to a year after graduation to complete additional practical training. However, to complete a medical residency program, you must obtain a J-1 exchange visa or H-1B visa. Likewise, if you are a foreign national who has graduated from a medical school outside of the U.S., you can come to the U.S. to complete a medical residency program under the J-1 exchange visa or H-1B visa.
Some of the differences between an F-1 visa and a J-1 visa are as follows:
Eligibility for an F-1 visa comes with no restrictions on your funding, be it personal, outside funds, or a combination of both. To be eligible for a J-1 visa, a substantial portion of your funding must come from non-personal sources, such as from your program in the U.S., your home institution, or your government.Under the F-1 visa, F-2 classified dependents are not eligible for employment. Under the J-1 program, spouses and unmarried children under 21 years of age, regardless of nationality, are entitled to J-2 classification and are entitled to work authorization; however, their income may not be used to support you.Under the F-1 visa, you are not required to return to your home country after completion of your studies. Under the J-1 visa, you must return to your home country for two years after completing residency (the two-year foreign residency requirement).
It should be noted that a "J-1 Physician" cannot remain to work in the U.S. immediately after completion of medical residency. For many foreign born physicians this is no doubt quite an obstacle. However, there are a number of methods to obtain a waiver of the two-year foreign residency requirement. In addition, some foreign nationals avoid this hurdle altogether by completing their medical residency programs with a visa for professional workers (H-1B) (as opposed to the J-1 exchange visa). It appears more and more residency programs will sponsor a foreign born physician for an H-1B professional worker visa so you need to understand the special challenges that occur with H-1B status. We will discuss this in our next article.
This information is provided as an educational service by Ann Massey Badmus of Badmus Law Firm. If you have questions about complex immigration rules for medical professionals, you are invited to call me at
888-849-9104 or visit my website at http://www.badmuslaw.com.
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