President Trump's new executive order banning travel from six predominantly Muslim countries stands to impact the healthcare workforce in the United States. According to research published in a Health Affairs blog Monday, there are more than 7,000 physicians trained in those targeted countries now working in the country who combine see an estimated 14 million visits from patients each year.
Matthew Basilico and Michael Stepner, part of a team of economists from Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, used data from Doximity, an online professional network for doctors, to analyze the numbers.
Physicians from the six affected countries -- Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen -- don't just cluster in major metropolitan areas, either. They make up a significant share of the workforce in the Rust Belt and Appalachian states, providing 1.2 million doctor's appointments per year in Michigan; 880,000 in Ohio; 700,000 in Pennsylvania; and 210,000 in West Virginia.
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The affected physicians also provide 2.3 million patient visits in regions with physician shortages, providing needed services in areas such as cardiology, neurology, gastroenterology, pathology and internal medicine.
The findings indicate that the six banned countries have been a key source of doctors for the United States, with the physicians from those nations found be highly skilled, high-performing innovators. What's more, not all of these physicians have stable immigration statuses. Even for the ones who do, their ability to visit family and loved ones is now greatly limited.
"Prosperity and health in America depend upon a physician workforce which can reach all the patients who need it services," the authors wrote. "The executive order will affect the patients who rely on these doctors. And it will affect the lives of these people who have been living and working in the United States for many years."
Twitter: @JELagasse