Filipino Doctors as Nurses in America

The Philippines has given the world its best medical professionals for decades but as the "brain hemorrhage" continues, public health officials warn of its dire consequences. Around 1,000 hospitals have reportedly closed in the past five years because of a shortage of doctors. Likewise, a number of medical schools have ceased operating because of declining enrollment.
Patriotic Filipinos bemoan the fact that we are losing 70 to 90 per cent of our medical graduates to the United States. "This is a glaring insult to the blood, sweat and tears of our people," says Dr Jose Tiongco, a University of the Philippines graduate and chief executive officer of the Medical Mission Group Hospitals/Health Services Cooperative-Philippines Federation.

As US immigrants, our doctors have one of the highest average incomes per household in America. But if they are enjoying the good life, they most certainly deserve it after spending more than ten years in medical school.
Dr Francisco Marasigan, a Manila Central University graduate who is now based in California, was a rural doctor in Batangas for two years. "Many of my patients were so poor they could only pay me with vegetables from their farm."
He opened Marasigan and Marasigan Clinic in 1980 with wife Linda who also specializes in Family Practice. She came in 1968 when there was a high demand for doctors in Chicago. Although she had passed the Philippine board examination, she had to take two years of residency and one year of internship in the US.
When life in the Philippines was simple and peaceful (that is, prior to martial law, hyperinflation and the AIDS epidemic, when our economy was the envy of other Asian countries), our doctors were content to stay put, making house calls and trudging through rice fields. They felt it was their calling to treat the poor barrio folk who could hardly pay them. In return for their dedication, these rural patients respected and loved them to the point of shielding their eyes from the sun.
This kind of respect is something that eludes some of our contemporary doctors who have chosen to practice in another country. A Caucasian patient in New York reportedly demanded that he be treated by a "real doctor", not by a Filipino. Two Filipino doctors working as nurses in Texas were recently deported because they had changed the orders given by the actual (American) doctors on duty.

"The Philippines produces at least 4,000 doctors and more than 28,000 nurses a year. Eighty-eight percent of the nurses and sixty eight percent of the doctors go abroad," says Dr Tiongco. It is estimated that 8,000 nurses leave the country every year to work overseas, and almost 2,000 have medical degrees.

Because there is a higher demand for nurses than doctors especially in America, and it is faster to get a nursing license than a medical license, about 5,500 doctors are now enrolled in 45 nursing schools in the Philippines. In the last four years, 3,500 doctors left the country to take on nursing posts abroad. Some have even worked as caregivers in nursing homes.

A recent UST graduate enumerates some of the hurdles Filipino doctors face in the Philippines: taking the tough board examination after graduation, and if they want to go to the US, then taking the United States Medical Licensing Examination. A medical graduate says it would only cost her around P120,000 for the two-year Bachelor of Science in Nursing program.
While working as nurses overseas may be financially rewarding, public health experts in the Philippines say a dearth of medical practitioners is killing the country's health system. People complain of long waits in hospitals, women give birth without seeing a doctor, nurse or midwife. Meningitis or strokes are often fatal because no specialists are available.

Most Filipinos who are in America say they do not plan to retire in the Philippines. "We don't know how we can survive there anymore with the increasing violence in most areas. We cannot trust the government to protect us. Whereas here in the US, we feel relatively secure. We have great medical benefits and old age pension.”
That probably says it all.