Doctor Day

It has been a long time since I’ve written and a lot of changes have happened. One of the major changes happens to be getting a teaching job here in the States at Taylor Business Institute. Here I teach adults English as a Foreign Language and I couldn't be happier for the opportunity.

While working here I have noticed that a lot of my students are International Medical Graduates (IMGs), meaning they have graduated medical school in their native countries and are studying to get their medical board licenses to practice here in the United States. The process seems very grueling, intense and frankly, very expensive. The end goal of this process is for the IMG to be matched with a hospital and then hopefully said hospital will sponsor his/her work visa to stay in the United States. While watching my students go through this process I thought that there should be at least some way for me to help students other than simply not intrude when they seemed stressed.

This led to what I call “Doctor Day.” Long story short, I cold-called a series of local hospitals hoping that they would be able to come and speak to my class about possible volunteer opportunities at their respective hospitals. These volunteers opportunities, I theorized, would look good on my students’ resumes and it would allow me to help make their paths to citizenship a little less burdensome. Of the five hospitals I called, Rush Medical University Hospital was the only one to actually respond favorably and send someone out to speak to my class.

Low and behold, it was an amazing success. A lot of my IMG showed up and some even brought friends from other schools. The Dean of the school got behind the concept and gave his full support to having another Doctor Day. I hope to have another Doctor Day in the future with more hospitals participating in program. I hope my program truly helps my students with Medical degrees. It was fun and truly rewarding to do this for my students. By bringing them together, I feel I have helped Rush Medical, TBI and my IMGs so today was a good day and I hope to have many more like it.