‘I Have the Skills, I Have the Training.’ How Refugee Doctors Are Helping the U.S. Fight COVID-19 Even Without a Medical License

Long before he started medical school in Baghdad, Ahmed Al-Sarray knew he wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. By the time he graduated in 2015, that search for purpose evolved into a passion for health care in times of crisis. Even a grueling medical residency in the hardest-hit emergency rooms and trauma wards of Baghdad’s war-torn hospitals wasn’t enough to deter him. But the militants were. As rival militias flooded Al-Sarray’s emergency ward starting in 2017, he found himself fighting for his own life as much as those of his patients. Militia leaders demanded that he care for their fighters before other patients, and threatened to kill him if he attended to their enemies. After losing colleagues in violent attacks, he fled for the United States—but he never abandoned his commitment to heal. So when COVID-19 hit Al-Sarray’s adopted home of Los Angeles, he thought it was the perfect opportunity to put his medical background to use. “I have the skills, I have the training, I have the passion to help,” he says. What he doesn’t have is an American medical license. So Al-Sarray, who was granted asylum in the U.S. in 2018, can’t practice medicine in the country, due to strict licensing rules for foreign doctors. Instead of working as a doctor, Al-Sarray is doing what he sees as the next best thing: helping the City of Los Angeles fulfill its pledge to offer a COVID-19 test to anyone who wants one. He’s...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 UnitedWeRise20Monthly Source Type: news