California Endowment Funds Program to Funnel Immigrant Health Professionals into U.S. System
The California Endowment is funding a three-year, $2 million grant to help develop a model program that will move unemployed immigrant health professionals into "understaffed community clinics" and eventually into higher-paying jobs in health fields where there are shortages around the state, the San Jose Mercury News reports. Barriers such as language and education prevent many immigrants from obtaining jobs in the health industry, even if they have received medical training and certification in their native countries. The "Welcome Back" program aims to provide counseling for people "who have already devoted years of study to a profession and don't want to just throw it away," according to Dr. Jose Ramon Fernandez Pena, who helped create the program. Health care program officials at City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State University will evaluate immigrants' experience and then devise a study program encompassing "intensive, health care-focused English courses and a series of six-week seminars about the U.S. health system and culture." Program services will begin one year from now in San Francisco and Southern California (Chung, San Jose Mercury News, 3/20).
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