Pakistan is the 3rd Largest Source of Foreign Doctors in America

Pakistan is the third biggest source of foreign doctors who make up a third of all practicing physicians in the United States, according to OECD. Vast majority of Muslim doctors in America are of Pakistani origin.

Foreign Doctors in America:

About 30% of the 800,000 doctors, or about 240,000 doctors, currently practicing in America are of foreign origin, according to Catholic Health Association of the United States. Predictions vary, but according to the American Association of Medical Colleges, by 2025 the U.S. will be short about 160,000 physicians. This gap will most likely be filled by more foreign doctors.

Foreign Doctors in US, UK. Source: OECD


Pakistani Doctors in United States:

As of 2013, there are over 12,000 Pakistani doctors, or about 5% of all foreign physicians and surgeons, in practice in the United States.  Pakistan is the third largest source of foreign-trained doctors. India tops with 22%, or 52,800 doctors. It is followed by the Philippines with 6%, or 14,400 foreign-trained doctors. India and Pakistan also rank as the top two sources of foreign doctors in the United Kingdom.

Dow University of Health Sciences, Karachi, Pakistan


Dow Medical University of Health Sciences:

There are 3,100 graduates of Karachi's Dow University of Health Sciences, contributing the largest pool of doctors among the 12,000 Pakistani doctors in the United States. About 1,900 are from Lahore's King Edward Medical College and the rest from Karachi's Agha Khan University, Lahore's Allama Iqbal Medical College and other medical colleges in Pakistan, according to Dr. Humayun Chaudhry, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federation of State Medical Boards in the United States.

Doctor Shortages:

India has six doctors for 10,000 people and Pakistan has eight. The comparable figure for the United States is 25 doctors per 10,000. And yet, the United States continues to import thousands of doctors from these two South Asian nations. Predictions vary, but according to the American Association of Medical Colleges, by 2025 the U.S. will be short about 160,000 physicians. This shortfall will most likely be filled by foreign doctors from countries like India and Pakistan.

Summary:

Pakistani doctors make up the third largest source of practicing physicians and surgeons in the United States. And more are coming to make up the continuing shortages in spite of the fact that Pakistan has only eight doctors per 10,000 people, only a third of the 25 doctors per 10,000 in the United States. Will this change after President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20, 2017? Only time will tell.

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Comments

Riaz Haq said…
The US Distribution of Physicians from Lower Income Countries
E. Fuller Torrey1,* and Barbara Boyle Torrey2

The origin and distribution of the IMGs from lower income countries are both concentrated; 85 percent of them come from just 8 countries, and 67 percent of all IMGs are living in just 10 states (see Table S1). Forty-one percent of all IMGs from lower income countries come from India, and 22 percent of them are practicing in New York and California. The Philippines is the second largest provider of physicians from lower income countries (16 percent), and they are also practicing in disproportionate numbers in New York and California. Physicians trained in Pakistan, the third most important country of origin of IMGs in the United States (10 percent), practice disproportionately in Texas, New York, and Illinois.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3310056/

Riaz Haq said…
#Pakistan to build first #nursing university named after #Bahrain's King Hamad, affiliated with RCS of #Ireland
http://tribune.com.pk/story/1286260/pm-nawaz-performs-groundbreaking-pakistans-first-nursing-university/

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday performed the groundbreaking of the country’s first nursing university.

“The Bahrain funded state-of-the-art King Hamad University of Nursing and Associated Medical Sciences will help the country’s health sector prosper,” PM Nawaz said while addressing the groundbreaking ceremony. The university, being built in Chak Shehzad, is a gift from Bahrain and will be affiliated with Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland.

Addressing the event, the prime minister said in view of the dearth of trained nursing and training staff in the country, the noble project by Bahrain would help fill gap in healthcare sector.

Regional security: Bahraini commander meets army chief

PM Nawaz further said the university will raise the level of standard of health and will be significant in bringing quality nursing care in the country.

The prime minister stressed that health is one of the top priorities of the government. “The government aims to provide integrated healthcare spanning over the entire health spectrum from primary to tertiary care,” the premier said. He added that the “programme is unprecedented in terms of its magnitude and is being implemented in a phased manner and would provide coverage to 100 million people eventually. Work in this regard is being undertaken expeditiously.”

The ceremony also saw the announcement of construction for another 50 state-of-the-art hospitals throughout the country.

PM Nawaz to lay foundation of 1156MW power plant in Sheikhupura

The premeir said the government is focused on preventative measures and pointed out that the national immunisation programme provides free of cost vaccines to every Pakistani mother and child. “There has been significant improvement in the coverage of the programme and concrete steps are being taken to arrest the spread of polio,” he said.

PM Nawaz thanked the government of Bahrain, especially King Hamad for his generousity in offering support for the establishment of the university, saying “the university symbolises strong bonds of brotherhood and friendship between the two countries.”

“This is reflective of leadership of Bahrain’s love for the people of Pakistan and its commitment to help improve the quality of life of our people,” he added.
Riaz Haq said…
Karachi to gain its own cancer hospital by Dec 2019

http://tribune.com.pk/story/1278799/evolving-healthcare-system-karachi-gain-cancer-hospital-dec-2019/

KARACHI: The groundbreaking ceremony of the third Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital in the country was performed by a 10-year-old cancer patient, Waleed Iqbal. Together with Shaukat Khanum Memorial Trust (SKMT) board of governors chairperson Imran Khan, Waleed unveiled the groundbreaking plaque on Thursday.

Waleed and many other cancer patients from Sindh and Balochistan previously had to travel to Lahore for cancer treatment but now patients will not have to bear expense of accommodation and travelling with the establishment of a cancer hospital in Karachi.

The ceremony, which was held at the site of the hospital in Defence Housing Authority (DHA) City near the Superhighway, was attended by board members of the SKMT, the hospital’s senior management, dignitaries, donors and celebrities.

The hospital will be built on 20 acres of land allotted by DHA, for which we are very grateful, said SKMT’s chief executive officer Dr Faisal Sultan. He told participants that the total cost of constructing the hospital is Rs4.5 billion and the facility will be completed on December 29, 2019.


Dr Sultan added that the hospital will have the similar state-of-the-art facilities as are being provided at the other Shaukat Khanum hospitals in Peshawar and Lahore. This includes surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, hormone therapy and biological therapy facilities. The hospital will enhance and raise the healthcare standards in the region, claimed Dr Sultan.

Highlighting the details of the project, Dr Sultan said the new facility will have operating rooms, an intensive care unit, a chemo-bay facility, inpatient rooms, and outpatient clinics, initially. The hospital will have nine clinical departments – medical oncology, paediatric oncology, radiation oncology, brachy-therapy, CT simulation services, surgical oncology, anaesthesia, radiology with CT scanners, MRI scanners, X-ray machines, fluoroscopy, ultrasound machines, mammography scanners and a PET CT scanner. The pathology department will have haematology, clinical chemistry, microbiology, cytology, and a blood bank.


He added that this enormous facility would open up opportunities for oncologists, doctors, nurses and other health professionals to get training in the management, diagnosis and treatment of cancer.

Dr Sultan said around 75 to 80% of the patients at the facility are treated free of charge, while the remaining 20 to 25% of patients pay their own expenses. He also clarified that the hospital’s income depends on 40 to 45% of the revenue it generates, 25% on zakat and 35% on other donations.
Riaz Haq said…
#UK #NHS to bring 200 doctors each from #India and #Pakistan in 2017.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/12/nhs-could-bring-hundreds-doctors-india-stem-ae-crisis/


Hundreds of doctors may be drafted in from India and Pakistan to plug a spiralling crisis in Accident & Emergency departments, health officials say.

The scheme will start in Greater Manchester, with 20 medics due to be flown from India this year for up to three years.

The region’s eight Accident & Emergency departments have been under severe strain in recent weeks amid staffing shortages.


Officials behind the plans said the scheme, backed by Health Education England, could be expanded in respond to widespread shortages of A&E doctors across the country. The project is being run by the Greater Manchester devolution team and Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Foundation Trust.


Andrew Foster, trust chief executive told Health Service Journal said the region's A&E departments were now "very reliant on locums."

Most of the trusts needed around 10 to 12 "middle grade" doctors, but only had two or three. "They're very reliant on locums," he said.

Such medics are junior doctors, who have finished basic training but are still learning specialist skills and have yet to qualify as a consultant.

Mr Foster, who was formerly Department of Health director of of human resources, said the plans could form part of a national recruitment exercise.

"We are talking about the possibility of getting 200 [trainees] from India and the same number from Pakistan," he said.

In November a report by the Commons health select committee warned that A&E departments need at least 8,000 doctors – 50 per cent more than the 5,300 currently employed - to keep pace with the rise in emergency admissions in the last five years.

Under the new scheme, the NHS will pay £16,000 towards the training costs for each recruit, as well as paying their salary. The middle grade doctors would be placed in emergency departments for 2-3 years while completing their training in emergency medicine, before returning to India.

Ged Byrne, director of education and quality for Health Education England in the North West, said: “This work is helping to increase the number of doctors who are available to support acutely ill patients.

"The relationship benefits both the UK as it helps to fill an immediate need and the doctors themselves who gain access to high quality training and a unique skills set.”
Riaz Haq said…
#US Patient Mortality Lower With Foreign-Trained #Physicians from #India, #Pakistan, #Philipinnes, etc http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/875356 … via @medscape


Medicare patients admitted to the hospital and treated by internists who graduated from medical schools outside the United States had lower 30-day mortality than matched patients cared for by graduates of US schools, according to results of a study published online today in the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

To practice in the US, international medical school graduates must pass two exams on medical knowledge and one assessment of clinical skills, and complete accredited residency training here. However, medical schools outside the US are not accredited by any domestic agency. In response to concerns about quality of care from internationally trained physicians, the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates will require accreditation of medical schools outside the US by 2023.

Studies comparing the quality of care provided by internationally trained physicians with that by domestically trained physicians are few and small in scope. Yet, physicians trained outside the US may be perceived by some as not as competent as physicians who attended medical school in the US.

To compare the two, Yusuke Tsugawa, MD, MPH, PhD, from the TH Chan School of Public Health at Harvard, and colleagues conducted a large observational study of hospitalized Medicare beneficiaries to assess whether outcomes differ depending upon whether or not their general internists were trained domestically or abroad. The study excluded graduates from Central America and the Caribbean to minimize inclusion of US citizens trained outside the country. The countries that contributed the most internists to US hospitals were China, Egypt, India, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Syria.

The researchers assessed 30-day mortality rate (the primary outcome), readmission rate, and costs of care (total part B spending), and whether clinical condition influences differences in patient outcomes and care costs between the two groups of patients. In addition, they adjusted their models for patient characteristics (age, sex, race or ethnic group, diagnosis, and income), physician characteristics (age, sex, and patient volume,) and hospital fixed effects (characteristics of hospitals).

Results indicated that 44.3% (19,589 of 44,227) of general internists in the US graduated from medical schools outside the country. They were slightly younger than US graduates (46.1 v 47.9 years; P < .001), and were more likely to work in medium-sized, nonteaching, for-profit hospitals without intensive care units.

In addition, their patients were more likely to be nonwhite, have Medicaid, have lower median household income, and have more chronic comorbidities (congestive heart failure [CHF], chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD], and diabetes)


The mortality analysis included 1,215,490 patients admitted to the hospital under the care of 44,227 general internists between 2011 and 2014. Patients treated by international graduates had lower mortality (adjusted mortality, 11.2% v 11.6%; adjusted odds ratio, 0.95; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.93 - 0.96; P < .001).

"Based on the risk difference of 0.4 percentage points, for every 250 patients treated by US medical graduates, one patient's life would be saved if the quality of care were equivalent between the international graduates and US graduates," the authors write.

The cost analysis included 1,276,559 patients treated by 44,680 physicians during the same study period.

Overall, patients of internationally trained internists had slightly higher adjusted costs of care per admission ($1145 v $1098; adjusted difference, $47; 95% CI, $39 - $55; P < .001).

Meanwhile, adjusted readmission rates among 1,182,268 patients who were treated by 44,201 physicians did not differ between the two patient groups.
Riaz Haq said…
$15 million Gift to Notre Dame Catholic University from #Pakistani-#American #Muslim Physician Couple in #Indiana

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/your-money/norte-dame-muslim-philanthropists.html?_r=1

Rafat and Zoreen Ansari, medical doctors who were born in Pakistan, have spent the last four decades working and raising their three children in a suburb of South Bend, Ind., where they also have earned a reputation as civic leaders.

By their estimation, they have given at least $1 million and thousands of hours of their time to nonprofits focused on children with autism, which afflicts their youngest child, Sonya.

But a year and a half ago the couple and their children, all Muslim, began working on a larger gift in terms of money, impact and risk: Their goal was to fund something that would foster better understanding of religion, including Islam, Judaism and Christianity, with the belief that all religions should be treated with equal respect.

The family’s inclination to leave a legacy is not uncommon among people who have grown wealthy. But their focus could land them in the middle of one of the most charged issues of the day.

“We came as immigrants, and this country has given us so much,” Mrs. Ansari said in an interview ahead of the announcement. “We want to give something back to America, but also to humanity. We want to promote the idea of equality.”

On Friday, the Ansaris announced a $15 million gift to the University of Notre Dame, one of the top Catholic universities, to create the Rafat and Zoreen Ansari Institute for Global Engagement With Religion. The institute will aim to deepen knowledge of religion and look to explain how the traditions and practice of various religions influence world events.

“Whenever you get a gift of this size, it’s tremendous, but particularly to have this named for the Ansari family, who is Muslim, is tremendously meaningful to us,” said the Rev. John I. Jenkins, the president of Notre Dame, in an interview. “We believe religion is very important in our world. It can have a negative impact, but it should be possible to study the ways religion can be a force for human development and peace.”

Father Jenkins said the institute would look at religion not through a sociological or political lens, but through one focused on the religions themselves.

While the couple and the university said the gift, which was 18 months in the making, was not conceived as a way to make a political statement, all parties acknowledged that it came at a politically charged time, given the debate over Muslim immigration in America and Europe.

“In the last couple of years, the majority of problems have been created by the misunderstandings among the religions,” said Mr. Ansari, an oncologist and hematologist. “Is this the right time for the announcement? Yes, because there is so much going on.”

The Ansaris thought long and hard about how to achieve their goal. Their hometown, Granger, Ind., is just a few miles from Notre Dame. While the Ansaris were educated in Pakistan, their daughter Sarah graduated from Notre Dame Law School.

Riaz Haq said…
Hospitals in #Trump country suffer as #Muslim #doctors denied visas to U.S. https://interc.pt/2x7ChDd by @MaryamSaleh_

EVERY MARCH, DOCTORS across the United States and the world eagerly await “Match Day” — the day they find out what residency, internship, or fellowship program they’ve been matched with. By that point, residency candidates have completed medical school and passed a series of rigorous qualifying exams. For those who are not American — about a quarter of all doctors in the U.S. are foreign-born — there’s one additional step: securing a J-1 visa, a nonimmigrant exchange visa conditioned on an individual’s return to their home country for at least two years at the conclusion of the program.

In the weeks following the March 17 match, dozens of Pakistani physicians had their J-1 applications denied in Islamabad and Karachi, said Shahzad Iqbal, a Pakistani-American physician in New York.

Jan Pederson has spent the last 30 years of her legal career representing foreign-born physicians coming to the U.S. for residency or fellowship programs. It’s an unheralded but essential line of work, because without foreign doctors, the U.S. healthcare system would simply collapse, with the pain felt most acutely in rural areas. U.S. medical schools don’t produce anywhere near enough graduates to meet the needs of the country, particularly in places where people are reluctant to move to.

Like any legal practice, Pederson’s hasn’t always been smooth. Every so often, a client’s visa application is denied. It happens. In the years following the Sept. 11 terror attacks, doctors from countries, such as Iran and Syria, saw their applications get stuck in administrative processing until U.S. officials could affirmatively say the physicians posed no national security threat, she said.

But this spring, weeks after President Donald Trump issued a revised version of an executive order restricting immigration from six Muslim-majority countries, Pederson saw the same thing Iqbal did — what she called an “epidemic of Pakistani visa denials.”

Advocates say there is no way to separate the attempted Pakistani physician ban from the so-called Muslim ban and other Trump administration immigration policies.

“I think it’s a confluence of factors” that caused the visa denials, Pederson said. “It would be hard to escape the conclusion” that there is a correlation between the visa denials and the president’s anti-immigration rhetoric and policies.

“This year, we had about 34 J-1 refusals that were reported to us. This is kind of a historic number,” said Iqbal, who chairs the Committee on Young Physicians, which is a part of the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America. APPNA only knows about denials that rejected applicants reported to them, so it may be just the tip of the iceberg. Many reapplied, starting from scratch, and were successful, but started their programs late.

APPNA has lobbied on behalf of Pakistani doctors hoping to train in the United States since 2003, Iqbal said. Heightened post-9/11 security measures meant that many visa applications were held up in administrative processing, but “it never happened before that there was a mass number of denials,” he said. “Before, there were security clearances, and people were placed in security clearance for six months to two years.”

For the last five years, APPNA received reports of, at most, one or two physicians whose visa applications were denied, and usually it was because of an issue with an applicant’s immigration history.

This is concerning, Iqbal said, since Pakistan is one of the top suppliers of foreign doctors to the U.S. In 2015, 12,125 doctors of Pakistani descent were practicing medicine in the U.S., second only to India’s 46,137 doctors, according to the U.S. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Riaz Haq said…
#Pakistani-#American #medical grad Dr. Faisal Cheema from #Karachi's Aga Khan University gets $4 million research grant for heart transplant #research

https://dailytimes.com.pk/213442/pakistani-scientist-awarded-4-million-to-lead-research-on-heart-transplantation/

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani physician/scientist Dr Faisal H Cheema was awarded $4 million to lead a cutting edge research on heart transplantation.

Dr Faisal H Cheema belongs to the rural areas of Wazirabad and Hafizabad and got his education from Crescent Model School as well as the Government College, Lahore before moving to Karachi to attend medical school at Aga Khan University.

After graduation, he moved to the United States and further trained and worked at Columbia University , Loyola University, Johns Hopkins University, University of Maryland and University of California Berkley. He is currently a faculty member at Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Heart Institute in Houston, TX.

He has served as Senator for the Ivy-League Columbia University and is involved with several professional, academic, community and philanthropic organisations. Dr Cheema’s passionate and selfless work for young physicians culminated in the establishment of Committee for Young Physicians within Association of Physicians of Pakistani-descent of North America, on which he served for more than a decade that included chairing it. He has helped hundreds of students in their search for residencies and or advancing their medical careers in the US. He loves to mentor medical students and young physicians.

Ever since he left his motherland, he continues to collaborate with various institutions in Pakistan and guides students from medical schools across the country. Dr Cheema has published more than 110 scientific manuscripts in high impact journals. In due course of time, through strategic partnerships among academic, corporate, governmental and philanthropic institutions, Dr Cheema’s mission is to make heart and lung transplant and artificial devices for end-stage heart failure and lung disease a reality in Pakistan.

He also aspires to develop a national organ donation and allocation system for Pakistan. Dr Cheema and his colleague Dr Jeffrey A Morgan have been awarded $4 million in funding from Brockman Medical Research Foundation to lead cutting edge research on heart transplantation.
Riaz Haq said…
Pakistani-American Doctor is the Second Highest Medicare Biller

Dr. Asad Qamar, a graduate of Lahore's King Edwards Medical College, received $18.2 million in payments from US Medicare program in 2012, making him the second highest billing doctor in America. Dr. Qamar is a member of APPNA, Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent in North America. He was a candidate for the presidency of APPNA in 2013.


Asad Qamar M.D.

Dr. Qamar, a Pakistani-American cardiologist, and his family have given at least $300,000 to politicians and political causes in the 2012 election cycle and in 2013, according to contribution disclosure records reported by Reuters. Dr. Asish Pal, a Florida-based Indian-American, is the second highest billing cardiologist in America. Dr. Pal was paid $4.5 million by Medicare.

Dr. Qamar has been subjected to lengthy reviews of his billing practices by US Department of Health and Human Services. He has complained to President Obama and other officials that the contractors conducting the reviews for the HHS were slow and unresponsive. Dr. Qamar told New York Timesthat his payments were high because his practice, which has 150 employees and a caseload of 23,000 patients, routinely handles complicated procedures like opening blocked arteries in the legs of older patients, which normally would be billed by a hospital.

Only Dr. Salomon Melgen, a Florida Ophthalmologist, billed Medicare for a larger amount than Dr. Qamar did in 2012. Dr. Melgen, too, is a major contributor to Democratic party. Dr. Melgen’s firm donated more than $700,000 to Majority PAC, a super PAC run by former aides to the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada. The super PAC then spent $600,000 to help re-elect Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, who is a close friend of Dr. Melgen’s. Last year, Mr. Menendez himself became a target of investigation after the senator intervened on behalf of Dr. Melgen with federal officials and took flights on his private jet, according to The Times story.


http://www.riazhaq.com/2014/04/pakistani-american-doctor-is-second.html
Riaz Haq said…
NY Times History of Islam in America

https://youtu.be/lSycg4APyu4

Muslims arrived with Columbus and have been leaving their mark on American culture and society ever since. Did you know that the Statue of Liberty was based on an Egyptian Muslim woman and that two of the oldest mosques in the United States are in Ross, N.D., and Cedar Rapids, Iowa? In the video above, we explain many other ways Muslim history is tightly woven into American life.

Muslims have been here since the time of the earliest explorers and have left their mark on everything from the White House to the Marine Corps uniform.

By Hussein Rashid, Negin Farsad and Joshua Seftel

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/opinion/contributors/muslims-united-states-history-islam.html
Riaz Haq said…
'State Of The Heart' Cardiologist Assesses Breakthroughs In Heart Health (Pakistani-American cardiologist Dr. Haider Warraich)


https://www.wknofm.org/post/state-heart-cardiologist-assesses-breakthroughs-heart-health


This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Breakthroughs in heart medicine, including surgical procedures, devices and medications, have changed how various forms of heart disease are treated and enabled many people to live longer lives. We're going to hear about some of those new developments from Haider Warraich, author of the new book "State Of The Heart: Exploring The History, Science, And Future Of Cardiac Disease." We're also going to talk about cholesterol and blood pressure.

Warraich previously joined us to talk about his book "Modern Death: How Medicine Changed The End Of Life." He's a cardiologist who began his medical training in Pakistan, where he's from, and continued his training in cardiology at Harvard Medical School and Duke University. In September, he joins the faculty of Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical School and the Boston VA.

Doctor Haider Warraich, welcome back to FRESH AIR. You write that during the time that you were a medical student, you saw so many changes in heart medicine and technology. Tell us about one that you think is most significant.

HAIDER WARRAICH: When I was a medical resident up at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, this was around the time when a new device had just started to be used in clinical practice that I had really never heard about before. And this was a device called a left ventricular assist device. And really what it is, is it is a mechanical pump that can be sewn directly, right into a patient's heart, and basically takes over the pumping function of the heart. And I know when this program started, there was a specific row in the hospital, in the wards, where these patients would be taken care of. And at least initially, residents were not even allowed to take care of these patients. So they had this aura, this mystery to them.

But the interesting thing about this therapy is that it fundamentally changes so many of the things what we consider to be, you know, the key fundamental principles of being a human being. So, you know, these patients who had these mechanical pumps, you know, they didn't have a pulse. If you performed CPR on them, it could actually do more harm than good. And these patients were basically dependent on their batteries for their life.

So this was such a dramatic departure from really any type of other medical intervention that I'd ever even heard about, which is, you know, part of the reason why I actually pursued this and now I actually specialize in taking care of these patients.

GROSS: Yes, and you describe this device, which is an LVAD - which stands for left ventricular assist device - you describe it as representing the dawn of a new era in human life, the union of man and machine. Because you're totally dependent on the machine, I mean, every second of the day. But really, the idea of, like, no pulse. I can't - it's, like, hard for me to conceive of that.

WARRAICH: I mean, it's hard as a physician. I mean, checking someone's pulse is part of the - you know, one of the sort of purest and oldest rituals in medicine. When you come up to someone, you shake their hands, and you're examining them. And you almost always start by checking the pulse in their wrist. And the other thing that happens in these patients is that if you put a stethoscope to their chest, usually, you'll hear, you know, the gallop of the heart kind of, you know, running away as it has been since, you know, we were in our mothers' womb.

Riaz Haq said…
Saudi Arabia and UAE have decided to de-recognize Pakistani MD degree. Do the Arabs know something the Americans and the Brits don't? Pakistan is the second largest source of foreign doctors in the UK and the 3rd largest source in America.

https://www.riazhaq.com/2016/12/pakistan-is-3rd-largest-source-of.html
Riaz Haq said…
My research similarly shows that creating spaces for empathy can prove invaluable for combating intergroup hostility. In 2015, my research assistants and I interviewed Americans and Pakistanis on their views of each other’s culture. We found that both groups held highly negative beliefs and stereotypes about the other. Pakistanis didn’t just see Americans as loose, but as immoral and arrogant. Americans saw Pakistanis as overly constrained, but also aggressive and violent. As impressions are often formed through the media, which thrives on caricature, such extreme stereotyping is perhaps not surprising. What’s more, we tend to live in our own echo chambers. Even on Twitter and Facebook, we communicate with those we know and those who share our views, rather than engaging with people from other cultures. In our study, we wondered if we could lessen intergroup intergroup hostility by giving each group a more realistic window into each other’s lives. We didn’t have the budget to fly Pakistanis to the United States or vice versa. But what if Americans were able to read the actual daily diaries of Pakistanis, and Pakistanis were able to read the diaries of Americans, over the course of a week? Would this exposure to one another’s day-to-day lives change their attitudes? To find out, my collaborator Joshua Jackson and I had American and Pakistani students write about their everyday experiences for one week. We then gave a new group of participants, including a hundred American and a hundred Pakistani students, a set of these diary entries to read over the course of a week. The results of this low-cost intervention were striking: As compared with participants who read diary entries from members of their own culture, participants who read diary entries written by members of the other culture viewed the two cultures as being much more similar. What’s more, Pakistani participants who read Americans’ diaries viewed Americans as more moral and as having less of a sense of superiority over other cultures. And, by the end of this intervention, our American participants who read diaries written by Pakistanis viewed Pakistanis as less violent and more fun-loving. “I don’t know many Pakistanis personally, but the diary entries helped me learn about the everyday life of someone in Pakistan,” one American participant wrote at the study’s end. “I think that they tend to be a bit more religious than the people in America, but have similar life patterns and personalities to us.” Likewise, a Pakistani participant remarked, “Americans may be different than us in moral, ethical, or religious values, but the lives of students in America are very similar to the life of a student here . . . They are law-abiding citizens, which is one of the reasons the system in America is working smoothly.” As these quotes show, interventions that improve our understanding of people from other cultures hold tremendous promise for defusing stereotypes, heading off conflict, and resolving intercultural disputes. Every day, citizens are finding meaningful ways to interact with people far outside their own social circles. In 2017, the Washington Post reported that, in a Dairy Queen in Dallas, Texas, two American-born men decided to have a sit-down over burgers and fries to untangle their mutual suspicion. On one end, there was David Wright, a white man who had founded a militia called the Bureau of American Islamic Relations (BAIR) with the mission of rooting out Islamic terrorists in Texas. At the other end was Ali Ghouri, a member of a local mosque where Wright and his coalition had protested twice with weapons and signs reading “Stop the Islamization of America.” Against the advice of other members of his mosque, Ghouri confronted the protesters, saying, “I have a weapon. You have a weapon. I’m not scared of you.” Five months later, Wright and Ghouri met at the Dairy Queen. Each man brought a friend—and a gun.

Gelfand, Michele. Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World (p. 198-199). Scribner. Kindle Edition. 
Riaz Haq said…
Pakistani doctors recognize the heroes of pandemic among them | ksdk.com

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/health/pakistani-physicians-of-st-louis-acknowledge-their-heroes-appna-who-forge-ahead-against-pandemic/63-4f5df9a5-15cb-4058-900f-3cf58ff1645e

T. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. — The Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America recognized healthcare workers for being on the front lines during the ongoing pandemic.

"I think there's strength in numbers," said Dr. Tariq Alam, St. Louis Chapter President of APPNA. "One physician alone can't win this fight. We all have to pour in our ideas. Get the best from everyone and get the best solution for our region."


For the 250-plus members, collaborating across healthcare networks in our region was easy, Dr. Alam said. He also says it brought doctors closer to the community.

"We have many who have language barriers, or economic barriers," Dr. Alam said. "Basically being able to reach out to them, I think that is one of our highlights."

Member and St. Louis County Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan said there's not enough praise to go around.


"The only reason we aren't looking at a 3 million or 4 million death count is because of the selfless work and sacrifice of healthcare providers across the country," Dr. Khan said. "We owe them everything."

Khan said the work isn't done yet.

"I am very happy that nearly 35% in the St. Louis region is vaccinated," Dr. Khan said. "I am equally worried that 65% of us are not. We are not out of this yet."

Khan is happy that county leaders support strong health guidelines until we cross the finish line. He said it's going to take more community action before things return to normal.

"It depends entirely on how the virus behaves, on the number of people getting vaccinated and the spread of disease in smaller communities in high-risk groups," Khan said.

Until then, doctors say mask up and get the vaccine or encourage others to do so.
Riaz Haq said…
St. Louis County Health Director Dr. Faisal Khan, a Pakistani American, was subjected to racial abuse at a St. Louis County Council meeting, according to multiple media reports. He apparently got caught up in the middle of a fierce, angry debate on new mask mandates amid surging infections attributed to the Delta variant of the COVID19 virus that originated in India. The anti-mask crowd is particularly strong in Republican states that voted for former President Donald J. Trump.

https://www.riazhaq.com/2021/07/racial-slurs-hurled-at-pakistani.html
Riaz Haq said…
Excerpts of "Our Man", biography of late Richard Holbrooke, President Obama's Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan (SRAP), by George Packer

Holbrooke died in December 13,2010 after his aorta ruptured.

His emergency heart surgery was performed by Dr. Farzad Najam, a Pakistani-American heart surgeon at George Washington Hospital in Washington DC.

-------------------


Hillary Clinton’s doctor, Jehan El-Bayoumi, worked at George Washington and heard from a Clinton aide that an important person was coming their way. A young cardiologist named Monica Mukherjee met the ambulance at the doors and led the gurney through the emergency room to radiology.

--------

Mukherjee called the hospital’s chief cardiac surgeon, who was fifteen minutes away. “You need to come right now. It’s a VIP.” “Who is it?” “His name is (Richard) Holbrooke.” He was wheeled into the triage trauma bay and a curtain was drawn around the gurney. Feldman was on his left side, holding his hand, and LaVine was at the foot of the bed. Mukherjee was trying to get a catheter into his right wrist to monitor blood pressure, but he was in such turmoil that she couldn’t do it. His skin was cold and clammy and he looked as if he was about to pass out, but Mukherjee was struck by how he dominated the room—not just his size but his sheer presence, the light in his ice-blue eyes.

--------------------

They wheeled him to the elevator and took him up to the second floor. He kept instructing Feldman. “Tell Mort Janklow. No, wait till the operation is over, and don’t release a press statement till it’s over.” In the intensive care unit the surgeon introduced himself. “Mr. Holbrooke, I am Dr. Farzad Najam, the cardiac surgeon here.” “Any Indian-American doctor is okay with me,” Holbrooke said. Still putting on. Najam and Mukherjee exchanged a look. Najam was a Pakistani American, from Lahore. He knew about Holbrooke’s work. “Just tell me it’s going to be okay.” “Mr. Holbrooke, you have an acute aortic dissection—the aorta has ripped. It’s a surgical emergency and we need to take you to the operating room.” Najam would have to cut through the breastbone, put him on a bypass pump, and replace the aorta and perhaps the valve.


Packer, George. Our Man . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Riaz Haq said…
Pakistani-American heart surgeon Dr. Mohammad Mohiuddin and Dr. Bartley Griffith performed the first successful genetically-modified pig heart transplant into a human patient today at University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) hospital in Baltimore, according to the University's press release. Considered one of the world’s foremost experts on transplanting animal organs, known as xenotransplantation, Muhammad M. Mohiuddin, MD, Professor of Surgery at UMSOM, joined the UMSOM faculty five years ago and established the Cardiac Xenotransplantation Program with Dr. Griffith. Dr. Mohiuddin serves as the program’s Scientific/Program Director and Dr. Griffith as its Clinical Director.

https://www.riazhaq.com/2022/01/pakistani-american-surgeontransplants.html
Riaz Haq said…
Farha Abbasi earns national recognition for work on minority mental health | MSUToday | Michigan State University


https://com.msu.edu/news_overview/news/2023/march/dr-farha-abbasi-earns-national-recognition-work-minority-mental-health

The first conference was conceived in the post-9/11 era, a time when Islamophobia, antisemitism and racism were “rampant and on the rise,” said Abbasi, who was born in Pakistan. For an academic institution, such as MSU, to believe in this notion and tend to the mental health needs of underrepresented and attacked groups like Muslims was a “phenomenal feat.”

Mental health is a privilege in many developing countries, she said, and MSU has the knowledge, resources and compassion to make a profound impact globally. “I am very grateful for the immense support I have received at the department, college and university levels.”

MSU has become a leading name in the field of Muslim mental health and Abbasi hopes to build upon those efforts. She, along with a group of psychiatrists of Pakistani origin, recently met with the president of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to support mental health infrastructure, inclusive health policies and the decriminalization of suicide in the country. Abbasi also has worked in a variety of other nations, including Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia and Turkey to provide first aid mental health training, capacity-building projects and more. She hopes to work with the MSU Institute of Global Health to continue integrating mental health into the global health curriculum.
Riaz Haq said…
As of 2016, there were 12,454 Pakistani doctors and 45,830 Indian doctors out of 215,630 total in the United States.


https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?QueryId=68336

India 45,830

Pakistan 12,454

Grenada 10,789

Philipines 10,217

Dominica 9,974

Mexico 9,923

Canada 7,765

Dominican Republic 6,269

China 5,772

UAE 4,635

Egypt 4,379

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Total Foreign Doctors in UK 66,211

India 18,953

Pakistan 8,026

Nigeria 4,880

Egypt 4,471

Foreign Doctors in Canada 25,400:

South Africa 2,604

India 2,127

Ireland 1,942

UK 1,923


US 1,263


Pakistan 1,087


Riaz Haq said…
Dr. Monica Mukherjee (Indian) and Dr. Farzad Najam (Pakistani) doctors did emergency surgery on Richard Holbrooke (Obama's Special Rep for Afghanistan and Pakistan) at George Washington University Hospital in Washington DC. Here's an except from George Packer's biography of Holbrooke:

Hillary Clinton’s doctor, Jehan El-Bayoumi, worked at George Washington and heard from a Clinton aide that an important person was coming their way. A young cardiologist named Monica Mukherjee met the ambulance at the doors and led the gurney through the emergency room to radiology. Holbrooke was screaming in pain. Mukherjee tried to settle him down for the CT scan. She could already tell that his aorta had torn. She didn’t know who he was but he seemed gigantic to her, much too long for the gurney. His enormous feet almost fell off the end. No blood was reaching those feet and their distress was now extreme. Feldman stepped away to call the doctors in New York.

“Where’s Dan,” Holbrooke demanded, “where’s Dan?” “You have to calm down,” Mukherjee told him. The scan showed a Type A aortic dissection, meaning straight to surgery. In the secretary of state’s office the force of his heart pounding blood under immense pressure through the stressed and weakened aneurysm had torn a hole in the aorta’s inner layer, and as blood streamed between the layers the torn flaps blocked the flow to the spinal arteries, and his lower half was cut off.

Mukherjee called the hospital’s chief cardiac surgeon (Dr. Farzad Najam), who was fifteen minutes away. “You need to come right now. It’s a VIP.” “Who is it?” “His name is Holbrooke.” He was wheeled into the triage trauma bay and a curtain was drawn around the gurney. Feldman was on his left side, holding his hand, and LaVine was at the foot of the bed. Mukherjee was trying to get a catheter into his right wrist to monitor blood pressure, but he was in such turmoil that she couldn’t do it. His skin was cold and clammy and he looked as if he was about to pass out, but Mukherjee was struck by how he dominated the room—not just his size but his sheer presence, the light in his ice-blue eyes. She was still struggling with the IV. “This may hurt.”

---
He closed his eyes. “I hate the beach.” “Okay, what do you like?” He opened them and looked at Mukherjee. “I like beautiful women.” Mukherjee was getting a little annoyed. El-Bayoumi told him again to relax. “I can’t relax. I’m in charge of Afghanistan and Pakistan.” “And Iraq?” “No, I don’t care about Iraq. I’m trying to bring peace to Afghanistan.” “Just relax,” El-Bayoumi said. “Let me worry about Afghanistan.” “Fine. You end the war.” He was handed consent forms to sign but was in too much pain to read them. “I have a problem with the second clause,” he said, putting on. He signed.

They wheeled him to the elevator and took him up to the second floor. He kept instructing Feldman. “Tell Mort Janklow. No, wait till the operation is over, and don’t release a press statement till it’s over.” In the intensive care unit the surgeon introduced himself. “Mr. Holbrooke, I am Dr. Farzad Najam, the cardiac surgeon here.” “Any Indian-American doctor is okay with me,” Holbrooke said. Still putting on. Najam and Mukherjee exchanged a look. Najam was a Pakistani American, from Lahore. He knew about Holbrooke’s work. “Just tell me it’s going to be okay.” “Mr. Holbrooke, you have an acute aortic dissection—the aorta has ripped. It’s a surgical emergency and we need to take you to the operating room.” Najam would have to cut through the breastbone, put him on a bypass pump, and replace the aorta and perhaps the valve.

Packer, George. Our Man . Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Riaz Haq said…
Migration of academics: Economic development does not necessarily lead to brain drain

https://phys.org/news/2023-01-migration-academics-economic-necessarily-brain.html

A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Rostock, Germany, developed a database on international migration of academics in order to assess emigration patterns and trends for this key group of innovators. Their paper was published in PNAS on Jan. 18.

As a first step, the team produced a database that contains the number of academics who publish papers regularly, and migration flows and migration rates for all countries that include academics who published papers listed on the bibliographic database Scopus. The migration database was obtained by leveraging metadata of more than 36 million journal articles and reviews published from 1996 to 2021.

"This migration database is a major resource to advance our understanding of the migration of academics," says MPIDR Researcher Ebru Sanliturk. Data Scientist Maciej Danko adds: "While the underlying data are proprietary, our approach generates anonymized aggregate-level datasets that can be shared for noncommercial purposes and that we are making publicly available for scientific research."

MPIDR Researcher Aliakbar Akbaritabar explains how they processed the bibliographic data in order to receive information about the migration patterns of academics: "We used the metadata of the article title, name of the authors and affiliations of almost every article and review published in Scopus since 1996. We followed every single one of the roughly 17 million researchers listed in the bibliographic database through the years and noticed changes in affiliation and, by using that tactic we know how many academics left a given country every year."

The researchers' empirical analysis focused on the relationship between emigration and economic development, indicating that academic setting patterns may differ widely from population-level ones.

Previous literature has shown that, as low-income countries become richer, overall emigration rates initially rise. At a certain point the increase slows down and the trend reverses, with emigration rates declining.

This means that favoring economic development has the counterintuitive effect of initially increasing migration from low- and middle-income countries, rather than decreasing it.

Is this pattern also generally valid for migration of scientists?

Not really.

The researchers found that, when considering academics, the pattern is the opposite: in low- and middle-income countries, emigration rates decrease as the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita increases. Then, starting from around 25,000 US Dollars in GDP, the trend reverses and emigration propensity increases as countries get richer.

MPIDR Director Emilio Zagheni adds, "Academics are a crucial group of innovators whose work has relevant economic effects. We showed that their propensity to emigrate does not immediately increase with economic development—indeed it decreases until a high-income turning point and then increases. This implies that increasing economic development does not necessarily lead to an academic brain drain in low- and middle-income countries."

Unveiling these and related patterns, and addressing big scientific questions with societal implications, was possible only because of painstaking work in preparing this new global database of migration of academics. "We are putting the final touches on an even more comprehensive database, the Scholarly Migration Database, which will be released on its own website soon," says software developer Tom Theile.
Riaz Haq said…
Latest US Census Data Released in 2023

https://data.census.gov/table/ACSSPP1Y2022.S0201?q=S0201:+Selected+Population+Profile+in+the+United+States&t=-02:-04:070:Ancestry:Income+and+Poverty

Pakistani-Americans Median Household Earning: $106,281, Mean Earnings: $149,178

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White Americans: Median household Income $78,636 Mean Earnings $112,415

African Americans : $52,238 $76,888

American Indian Alaska Native $61,778 $85,838

Asian Indian $152,341 $197,732

Bangladeshi $80,288 $116,500

Chinese $101,738 $160,049

Taiwanese $122,952 $180,906

Filipino $109,090 $122,635

Pakistanis $106,286 $149,178

Nepal $92,262 $120,146

Asians $104,646 $149,363

Riaz Haq said…
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Riaz Haq said…
Diaspora's role in promoting health care in Pakistan

https://tribune.com.pk/story/2501083/diasporas-role-in-promoting-health-care-in-pakistan

Shahid Javed Burki

Physicians of Pakistani origin living and working in the United States constitute an important part of their country's diaspora. The size of the Pakistani diaspora is now estimated at 700,000 or 0.2 per cent of the American population. Those who have moved to the United States account for 0.3 per cent of the Pakistani population. As I will take up later in this article, I and one Pakistani doctor have played active roles in getting the diaspora involved in the affairs of their country. While I established an institution based in Lahore that is now named after me, Dr Nasim Ashraf developed a close relationship with General Pervez Musharraf who gave him a position as a member of his cabinet.

Nasim Ashraf has recently self-published a book that provides a detailed account of the way Pakistani physicians under his leadership began to work together under an effective organisation called AAPNA. The acronym stands for the Association of Physicians of Pakistani descent in North America. Ashraf's book is appropriately titled Ringside, since it provides a view of the political ring that he watched from the sidelines in Pakistan. The book focuses on the role the Pakistani physicians have played in helping the country of their origin to improve the situation of health which has caused economists such as myself to worry how the country's poor performance in the sector of health is likely to affect its economic, social and political progress.

Nasim Ashraf has recently self-published a book that provides a detailed account of the way Pakistani physicians under his leadership began to work together under an effective organisation called AAPNA. The acronym stands for the Association of Physicians of Pakistani descent in North America. Ashraf's book is appropriately titled Ringside, since it provides a view of the political ring that he watched from the sidelines in Pakistan. The book focuses on the role the Pakistani physicians have played in helping the country of their origin to improve the situation of health which has caused economists such as myself to worry how the country's poor performance in the sector of health is likely to affect its economic, social and political progress.

Pakistan's health system as redesigned by the 18th Amendment to the Constitution has passed on the responsibility of providing healthcare of the citizens to the provincial governments. They have not been effective in performing this role. There are a number of problems with the system. Of these, four are important: lack of finance; deep differences in coverage provided in the urban and rural areas; not enough focus on child- and mother-care; and a serious shortage of paramedics, nurses in particular. Taking the last first.

A paramedic is a healthcare professional whose main role has been to respond to emergency calls for medical help. Following the response, the affected person is transferred to a well-established medical facility such as hospitals and clinics. This system was put to test during the Covid crisis when Pakistan performed better than neighbouring India in part because the pandemic there struck difficult-to-reach slums in the highly population-dense city of Mumbai. Pakistan has only 106,000 nurses to serve a population now estimated at 240 million. As discussed below, the Burki Institute of Public Policy (BIPP) has launched a programme to increase the number of paramedics in the country, in particular in the areas around the megacity of Lahore.

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