After crossing the border with his family, Gomez-Torres found that hospitals in the United States would not accept his medical certification, forcing him to retake an American test that has proven difficult for him to pass. He now works as an anesthesia technician at the Moran Eye Center.
When the Amparar militaris, a Colombian guerilla terrorist group, began persecuting and extorting his family, Gomez-Torres fled the country with his wife and three children and sought political asylum in the United States. They left their home, ambulance business and prolific medical professions behind. Eight years later, Gomez-Torres did not know it would be for good.
The United States does not recognize the medical experience or credentials of other countries, and because of disadvantages passing American medical licensing exams, many international medical students and doctors like Gomez-Torres never practice medicine again after coming to the United States, instead trading their high-profile jobs for lower positions so that they can support their families.
“It’s a big process. And it’s a big frustration, too, because I lost the knife from my fingers (for) my surgeries just for empty follies,” he said.
In order to practice medicine in America, students must pass the three-phase United States Medical Licensing Exam. According to the latest USMLE pass rates, 91 percent of American medical students pass the first phase of the exam, but only 71 percent of international students pass the same phase of the test.
Many of the international students who do not pass the test the first time try again with more success, said Adi Gundlapalli, an epidemiologist at the U. Gundlapalli received his basic training in Madras, India and came to America to earn his PhD and credentials to practice medicine. However, his story is not the whole truth for all international men and women in medicine.
Gomez-Torres was a surgeon in Bogotá, the capitol city of Colombia, for nearly two decades. It was all he ever wanted to do, he said. It was the same for his wife, a chemist.
In 1993, they visited America to see one of Gomez-Torres’s brothers living in Minneapolis. There, he saw a business opportunity: ambulances. Gomez-Torres bought 10 cars and brought them to Colombia. It went well, until his family was put at risk by terrorists.
They fled across the border to the United States, but unbeknownst to them all those years ago, the toll road to freedom demanded a price. The wall they surmounted in their immigration was a picket fence compared to the one between them and medicine: the USMLE, a test with all its odds against them.
Most students take the first phase of the USMLE in the middle of their college career, said Devon Hale, a pathologist and advisor to international medical students. The first phase is a rigorous eight-hour test of academic knowledge in all the different fields of medicine, from anatomy to chemistry.
David Watt, a spokesman for the Federation of State Medical Boards, said that medical licensing ensures standards for doctors and their patients. While some international doctors do receive some sort of passing grade on the USMLE, they are usually world-renowned men and women immigrating to the United States to teach at a prestigious university, he said.
One of the major obstacles between international doctors and a medical license is the language barrier, said Joseph Orr, an anesthesiologist at the Moran Eye Center. Alvaro Camacho, a janitor who mops at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, was once a pharmacist in Colombia. He also fled to America as a political refugee, and has not been able to relearn a language other than his native Spanish, Orr said.
Also, students in other countries enter medical school right after graduating high school. Gomez-Torres said this is possible because their primary education is at a higher level than most American standards. This is a cause for resentment among some American doctors, who feel that their international counterparts should not be able to practice at the same level of medicine having only earned8212; in their eyes8212;the equivalent of a nursing degree, Orr said.
It’s also difficult for refugees to prepare for an American-geared exam. Hale said American professors use their students’ time only teaching material that will be on the exam, which leaves aspiring international doctors at a loss because the schools they attended outside the United States do not use this method.
Hale said that international students are frequently a long way from mastering the basic sciences they need when they have to take part one of the exam, which he said also accounts for the increased failure rate.
For a refugee like Gomez-Torres, who was nearly 20 years removed from academics when he came to America, the disparity is that much greater. The difficulty of passing the test is compounded since he works full-time to support his wife and three children, on top of earning his full citizenship.
Nine years have passed since the Gomez-Torres family arrived in America. It took eight years for them to receive their green cards. For their first year in America, they could only work delivering newspapers. For the next eighteen months, they served in nursing homes. They finally had their big break five years ago. The former surgeon and chemist went to work as nursing assistants at the U Hospital.
With three children in need of an education and a full time job to support them, Gomez-Torres said there hasn’t been time to study for the USMLE. It’s hard enough for medical students in the prime of their education to pass the exam, he said8212;consider the difficulty for a 54-year-old doctor who has been out of school for more than 25 years.
Gomez-Torres is not the only international doctor at one of the University’s medical centers. Yohannes Dagne practiced ophthalmology in Eastern Europe. He had to leave with his family. Now he’s a surgical technician at the Moran Eye Center. Gomez-Torres also works at the center as an anesthesia technician, along with another former doctor from Cuba.
“He was working as an anesthesiologist in Cuba. He came with family. He’s almost 60-years old. He is almost the same situation8212;just waiting for our children to do something better than we our doing right now,” he said.
For instance, Camacho, the pharmacist who now works as a janitor, works to support his daughter Nathalia, who is studying architecture at the U on a scholarship.
Their three children are their new priority and hope now, Gomez-Torres said. Although he and his wife had to sacrifice their professions, they did it because their family was at risk, and America could provide not only safety, but vast and greater opportunities for their children, he said.
“We chose this country because it’s the most important country in the world, and the opportunities that we saw for our children and their future,” he said.
Gomez-Torres’s youngest is still in high school. His middle child is studying at the U to be an architect or a computer programmer. Gomez-Torres forfeited his job as a nursing surgeon for U Hospital to his eldest son, Oscar Torres-Parra, who is currently working on his PhD to become a surgeon like his father once was.
“First, family. Second, my profession. I need to give the opportunity to my children to be a professional here. We are working for that. My wife and me,” he said. “You can’t imagine what a big frustration I felt at that time. But I learn my lesson: to be humble. I understand that families are what’s important. And I’m doing that for them.”
Anna KartashovaOscar Gomez-Torres, a surgeon from Colombia, now works as an anesthesia technician at the John A. Moran Eye Center because the United States will not accept his Colombian medical certification.