Hundreds of international doctors due to the start of medical residences are in visa limbo

A week before starting to work in American hospitals, hundreds of foreign doctors are still waiting to obtain visas granting them temporary stays in the country.

Many of them have been in limbo since the end of May, when the State Department has suspended the requests for J-1 visa, which allow people to come to the United States for exchange visitors. Visas are the most common way for international doctors to attend residences in the United States, which offer medical graduates training in a given specialty.

The State Department announced last week that embassies or consulates could resume visa interviews, but that candidates would be required to make their social media accounts public.

However, many doctors have still not been able to plan visa appointments because their embassies have not reopened the slot machines, according to Project IMG, a networking and support group for students in international medicine and graduates. Others have been informed during appointments on the visas in the past few days that their requests require additional verification.

Still others have been denied visas because they come from the indicated countries Trump’s travel ban on. The administration this month has partially limited visas for people from seven countries and fully suspended visas for 12 additional countries.

NBC News spoke with eight doctors who had a hard time obtaining visas before their residences, most of whom asked to remain anonymous for fear of affecting their visa application process. They said their dreams were now in the air after years of study, financial sacrifices and lost time with dear beings. THE Cost of medical license examsThat anyone who starts a medical residence in the United States must pass, can exceed $ 2,000. They are also concerned about the communities that they are supposed to be used in the United States, many of which have shortages in the doctor and count on incoming medical residents to fill these shortcomings.

Several doctors said they were frantically refreshing in the pages of Embassy in the hope that an appointment will open or seek slots in neighboring countries. Other visas that have been denied visas are trying to plan new meetings, but that are starting to lose hope.

“Sometimes I want to abandon, to be honest,” said a doctor, from a country of banality, was accepted in a pediatric residence in Rural Texas. “I’m tired. I studied a lot. I spent a lot of money. “

More than 6,600 doctors who are non -American citizens accepted in residence programs This year, according to the counterpart program for national residents. Once they are twinned with a program, these doctors have a brief window – about three months – to obtain a visa before the start of their residences on July 1. Many international doctors were able to plan interviews and obtain visas before the Trump administration visa break, according to the IMG project. But others were still waiting for their government’s documents to fill out their requests or could not obtain an interview until June.

The IMG project said on Tuesday that it estimated that hundreds of doctors are still stuck abroad due to the Trump administration’s visa restrictions.

“We have to resolve this crisis by July 1,” said Dr. Sebastian Arruarana, founder of the organization.

Many residence programs do their best to reserve people’s stains while the visa process takes place, but it is not a guarantee. Although the programs cannot revoke a place, they can request an exemption from the counterpart program of national residents who would release them from their commitment to a doctor. They can also postpone the place of a doctor the following year.

A spokesperson for the State Department said last Friday that NBC News that the protection of national security was the highest priority of the visa process. However, they noted that “the visas for qualified health professionals played an important role in helping the United States fighting critical health care shortages”.

Many hospitals are counting on incoming residents to meet the shortages of suppliers, especially in rural or low -income areas.

Dr. Artur Polechhuk and Dr. Kseniia Tonkoshkurova, a couple committed from Novi Sad, in Serbia, were twinned by a pediatric residence in a County Kanawha hospital in Virginia-Western. The county is appointed by the federal government as a Medically un served area with a shortage of primary care providers. Out of nine first-year residents in the couple’s program, three were retained by the suspension of the J-1 visa, Tonkoshkurova said.

“You can imagine how three doctors are crucial (for) health care for this small community,” she said. “These are patients who will have delays. And the doctors who are already there, they will work more. ”

After weeks of waiting, the couple finally managed to get an appointment for a visa interview next week. The Trump administration has led the American embassies and consulates Examine the online presences of candidatesIncluding social media activity, for any sign of hostility towards the United States, support for harassment or anti-Semitic plea for foreign terrorist groups. Polechshuk said they had nothing to hide in their social media profiles, which are already public, but they are nervous about how the interview will take place.

“Because of these new rules, we do not know what they will ask,” he said. “When you are in a really stressful situation, you fear being in this small percentage of people who have been refused.”

International doctors are often twinned with hospitals in poorly served communities in part because positions are less coveted by American candidates. But many international doctors also bring unique skills to neighborhoods – they talk about languages ​​other than English and can be familiar with diseases that are not common in the United States

Training in the United States can also benefit populations abroad. Dr. Gabriel Pena, a medical doctor of the Venezuela family who was accepted in a residence program in Chino, California, said that he was planning to use his training in the United States to treat the people of his country of origin.

“In the United States, you put a lot of research resources to find new treatments to help others,” said Pena. “You have a lot of tools that I am sure that in the future, I can use there in my country.”

Like many of her colleagues, Pena is struggling to obtain a visa because of the ban on travel. The Secretary of State or the Secretary of Internal Security may grant exceptions on a case-by-case basis for people whose stays in the United States serve national interest. But the State Department said that it expects “such exceptions to be very rare”.

Dr. Conrad Fischer, director of the residence program at One Brooklyn Health, a hospital network in New York, said that the visa ban could make you more difficult to attract talented doctors in residence programs next year. Requests open in September.

“We need the help of people who make these decisions in the State Department and other places to understand the complete impacts of the policies,” said Fischer.

CORRECTION (June 24, 2025, 7:50 p.m. HE): A photo legend on a previous version of this article destroyed the location of a hospital. It is in Joplin, Missouri, not Joplin, Mississippi.