This May, Professor Lillian Walkover was honored alongside her postdoctoral mentor, Dr. Susan E. Bell, with an award from the Whitetulip Health Foundation, presented at their Medical Professionals Appreciation Dinner for “Outstanding Contribution to the International Medical Graduate community and the Field of Medicine.” Dr. Walkover is an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Department of Communication and Global Health Program here at UCSD, and Dr. Bell is Professor Emerita in the Department of Sociology at Drexel University. 

The Whitetulip Health Foundation was founded by Dr. Servet Tatli, a physician who trained in Turkey before moving to the United States, and his colleagues. Under Dr. Tatli’s leadership, Whitetulip now includes over 1,000 volunteers across more than 30 states, providing mentorship and scholarships to students and healthcare providers, as well as free clinic services in New Jersey and Maryland. A key resource for Turkish and other clinicians arriving and working in the US, Dr. Walkover and Dr. Bell learned about Whitetulip while conducting research on the experiences and career paths of physicians who enter the US as refugees. 

The Refugee Physician Project was inspired by Dr. Bell’s research on the experiences of immigrants receiving healthcare in Maine, during which she encountered medical interpreters who had worked as physicians in other countries before arriving in the US. She recruited Dr. Walkover as a postdoctoral fellow, and together they interviewed a diverse group of International Medical Graduates who self-define as refugees, asylees or asylum seekers living in the US, as well as service providers (non-profits, lawyers, and staff at accrediting organizations) supporting this population. 

Their first article from the project, “The case for refugee physicians: Forced migration of International Medical Graduates in the 21st century” makes the case for the category of ‘refugee physicians’ – physicians trained outside the US and forced to flee their homelands – as a distinct category of International Medical Graduate (IMG), illuminating the distinct experiences and challenges of this group, as well as their potential to help meet US healthcare needs. A second article analyzes the unique challenges women refugee physicians face on this pathway. Their recent joint article from the project, “Assistance Programs to Medical Licensure for IMGs Living in the US” provides a scoping review of nonprofit services available to support refugee physicians and other IMGs currently living in the US, and was developed in part at the suggestion of study participants who requested this resource. Dr. Walkover’s teaching and community partnerships here at UCSD reflect her work on the project including ongoing collaboration with the UCSD ACTRI Center for Community Health Refugee and Immigrant Health Unit.

At the annual dinner, Dr. Bell was invited to share a keynote coauthored with Dr. Walkover, reflecting on their research, the work of Whitetulip, and the contributions of IMGs. In her conclusion Dr. Bell reflected: 

“While the current trends in state legislature and medical licensure for International Medical Graduates and Refugee Physicians are very encouraging, we know from our work – and many of you know from your own experience as physicians and as mentors – that this is just one element of the pathway to becoming a fully licensed physician in the US. Organizations like Whitetulip are absolutely necessary because they serve as intermediaries in an expensive, complicated and exacting process that is very familiar in some ways (blood pressure is measured and high blood pressure is diagnosed in medicine everywhere) but in other ways is very strange (including the language and customs of US biomedicine). You also provide crucial support navigating and overcoming the ways in which applications to residency programs by IMGs and RPs are devalued, helping applicants to be seen for the value they bring. In addition to being intermediaries and interpreters of US medicine, organizations like Whitetulip support, mentor, and forge communities among IMGs and RPs, support that moderates stigma and frustration. These organizations also make space to celebrate individual and group accomplishments, from physicians becoming integrated, to lives saved, and communities uplifted. We are grateful our work can contribute to understanding the incredibly valuable experiences IMGs and RPs bring to the US and to easing the professional integration of physicians who have overcome many obstacles even before arriving here, and who have so much to give. Thank you for the award and for inviting us to join you here tonight – we look forward to continuing this work together.”