Report: Maine’s foreign-trained health professionals face tough career hurdles
Courtesy / New Mainers Resource Center
A new report says foreign-trained health professionals in Maine face daunting career barriers, but makes recommendations for overcoming them.
Despite shortages of many health care workers across Maine, a new report has found the state's foreign-trained health professionals face daunting barriers to obtaining employment in the field.
The New Mainers Resource Center at Portland Adult Education released the report with findings and recommendations aimed to reduce those obstacles.
“Our findings show that doctors, nurses and other health professionals who have been trained and worked in another country face many hurdles to working in their professions in Maine,” Sally Sutton, New Mainers Resource Center’s program coordinator, said in a news release. “Unfortunately, there is not one quick and easy fix to this problem.”
But recommendations in the report could lay a framework for the state's health care system to do something about the problem.
According to the report, one of the most significant challenges is that many New Mainers who have been trained in other countries for health care professions have come to the U.S. as refugees or asylum seekers.
“This factor must be taken into consideration as it impacts the options people have available to them,” the report says. “People who come as a result of forced migration have not been planning for careers in the U.S., and consequently face a different set of issues with licensing.
“For this group of immigrants, there is also a need to prioritize meeting the basic needs of their families over the investment of time and money it would take to move ahead with their professional careers. This factor keeps many people stuck in positions far below their previous training and experience.
“For health professionals, being re-licensed in their profession is almost impossible to achieve. There are also no quick and cost-effective alternative paths that would get someone close to their former career.”
Highlights of recommendations
• Immigrant experience and voices should inform the process around strategies and evaluation of programs and initiatives.
• Public officials and private funders must address lack of access to financial resources needed for advancement on career paths, through licensing or returning to school.
• Regarding licensing: The Maine Legislature should pass the statutory language and appropriations necessary to implement the recommendations in the Report of the Commissioner of Professional and Financial Regulation regarding barriers faced by foreign- trained professionals. Other professional boards should do a similar analysis.
• Adult education programs – where most New Mainers learn English, prepare and plan for college, gain training and find their first jobs – are grossly underfunded and need more support.
• Employers can work with employees on career plans, provide resources toward licensing or school, open their businesses for a range of clinical experiences, offer internships and work with diversity officers or departments on new strategies to hire, support and retrain new Mainer health professionals.
• Higher education and state officials should work on increasing access to financial aid, provide credit or advanced standing, and design programs built around previous degrees and experience.
• Maine should explore the introduction of a new health profession – assistant or associate physician – for foreign-trained doctors who cannot obtain licenses.
• Expand support and investment in New Mainers Resource Center and Portland Adult Education to better serve New Mainer health professionals and employers.
Critical time
The recommendations come at a critical time as Maine’s health care systems struggle with COVID-19 and disparities in health continues among minority populations.
Establishing better pathways for immigrant health care professionals to return to practice could increase the diversity and cultural fluency of the state’s health care workforce in general, which is one way to begin addressing these health disparities, the report said.
Among the possible results, according to Portland Adult Education:
• Help foreign-trained health care workers reach their highest potential
• Address the state’s goal to achieve a diverse, equitable and inclusive workforce
• Meet the needs of health care employers, and address the state’s health care workforce shortages
• Attract skilled health care workers to Maine.
“By combining these efforts into a coordinated, sector-focused program, Portland Adult Education will be better able to achieve its vision of a program that serves any immigrant or refugee who has previously been a health care professional, or who wants a career in the health care field, by providing the guidance, support, training, and opportunities necessary to achieve their desired position,” said PAE Executive Director Anita St. Onge.
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