An International Medical Graduate (IMG) is a physician who practices medicine in the United States but attended medical school in another country (other than Canada). The definition is indifferent to citizenship or birth country.
IMGs comprise 25% of all physicians practing medicine in the United States.
10% of all IMGs practicing in the United States were born in the United States (US-born IMGs).
Physicians who trained in Canada are not considered IMGs in the United States because Canadian medical schools are recognized by the same organization that accredits US medical schools.
The presence of International Medical Graduates in the United States medical labor force has provoked contentious policy debate during the past several decades around two central questions:
1) Do IMGs displace training and employment opportunities for US citizens?
2) Do IMGs provide the same quality of care as US-trained physicians?
Mick (1993) also asks,
3) Do IMGs fill gaps in the US physician labor force? For example, are IMGs more likely to serve urban or rural populations?
A fourth question that has received less attention in the policy arena but is no less important regards global equity: How does the immigration of physicians from low-income countries impact the provision of health care in those countries?
To access the maps, click on Table of Contents at the lower left and then make a selection from the list. A new page that contains a series of maps will appear. To view change over time, simply move your cursor over the dates.
On-line Atlas
of
International Medical Graduates
The purpose of this On-Line Atlas is to display trends in the geographic distribution of IMGs over the past twenty years through a series of maps. The maps are intended to provide useful information regarding changes in the global production of IMGs and the distribution of IMGs within the US over time. The data used to produce the maps come from the American Medical Association Physicians' Professional Record (AMA-PPD) 2002.
The data displayed on this web site were collected by the American Medical Association. Physicians' Professional Record (AMA-PPD) 2002. Data are reported at five-year intervals (1981, 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001) in order to provide "snapshots." The data for each snapshot are not mutually exclusive - MDs surveyed in 1981 may well have been surveyed in subsequent years. Therefore the data should be regarded as cumulative, rather than exclusive, for each interval.
