Many immigrants arrive in America desperate to escape persecution and torture in their home countries. The U.S. grants asylum to immigrants who apply for it within one year of their arrival and can prove that they suffered persecution based on race, religion, political beliefs, nationality, or belonging to a social group. Proving this is the trick, however, and most immigrants who arrive traumatized, suffering from PTSD or depression, don’t have the resources to pay for a medical evaluation to prove their ordeal.
That’s where medical students at the Weill Cornell Medical College step in, providing free medical evaluations to asylum seekers. It’s the first student-run clinic of its kind, a partnership with the non-profit Physicians for Human Rights. As Carmen Stellar, the clinic’s director of organizational operations and a second-year medical student, explains to the New York Daily News, “having a medical affidavit as part of their case triples the likelihood of their being granted asylum.”
Under the direction of professors, the medical students meet with about 60 immigrants a year seeking asylum. They perform examinations, looking for physical or psychological evidence to prove the immigrants’ claims in court. The medical students look for scars from torture, female genital mutilation, or psychological distress, assuring that the evidence matches the immigrant’s story. So far, the clinic has met with 117 asylum seekers from 40 countries. All of the immigrants they’ve worked with who have taken their claims to court—34 so far—have been granted asylum or legal protection.
Alejandro Lopez, in his third year of medical school, is the clinic’s executive director. He recalled the first asylum seeker he met with, a gay man from Nigeria government officials persecuted because of his sexual orientation, even killing his mother. “He received asylum. So that’s extremely satisfying,” Lopez says. “You feel like you actually did something to impact someone’s life.” With programs like this one training compassionate doctors, this is just the first of many lives Lopez and his colleagues will impact.
MORE: Paperwork Stood Between Immigrants and Their Dream, so This Group Stepped In
Tag: Medical School
This Senator Has a Plan to Fight America’s Looming Physician Shortage
New Mexico, like many states, is seeing signs of the looming nationwide physician shortage. All but one county is facing a serious gap between the need for primary care physicians and available local doctors. Experts estimate that more than 1,400 doctors are currently practicing in the state, more than 200 short of what they need, and obstacles like the cost of med school are in the way. Especially with New Mexico’s expansive rural population, it’s a major problem. That’s why U.S. Senator Mark Udall is out to fix it, and offer a nationwide solution at the same time. Along with Senator Martin Heinrich, Udall introduced the Increasing Primary Care Access Act, which aims to improve training programs and hold the medical education system more accountable, all the in name of increasing access to healthcare. The goal of the bill is to equip the education system with the tools to serve the demand for newly trained doctors, including five specific programs:
- Centers of excellence that focus on primary care in med schools
- Incentive programs to encourage med students to choose residencies in primary care
- Reauthorization for the Teacher Health Center program, to create community care centers that can host primary care residents
- Committing graduate medical education funds to areas experiencing primary care provider shortages
- Funding workforce analysis centers to improve residencies in underserved areas.
Meanwhile, Senator Dean Heller of Nevada has joined Udall in introducing another bill, focusing specifically on healthcare access for rural veterans. Meaning there’s still hope before America’s physician shortage gets out of hand.