[vc_row][vc_column width=”1/6″][vc_single_image image=”24847″ alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]

Abdul Rashid Piracha, MD, FACC
Chair Advocacy Committee

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][vc_column width=”5/6″][vc_empty_space height=”20px”][vc_column_text]A total of 209 Pakistani Descent applicants were accepted in different  J-1 or H-1b residency programs.Unfortunately Corona virus pandemic started around the match time in mid march.The newly matched  applicants faced many challenges. Advocacy Committee contacted the state department ,ECFMG,US Embassy in Pakistan, the Association of Program  Directors. Health  ministry of Pakistan and PMDC. It gives me great pleasure to let you know that none of the visas got refused this year.

All were able to secure the visa and join the residency programs. Another  issue was travel restrictions due to corona virus pandemic .Numerous flights were cancelled .Many newly matched physicians were unable to travel to USA. Few Pakistani physicians and students were unable to go back home .APPNA advocacy with the help of Pakistani Embassy and PIA were able to arrange their flights.

Although Coronavirus pandemic may get  controlled ,the impact will continue into next year. USMLE suspended clinical skill part of USMLE step 2. ECFMG developed alternate pathways for IMGs to qualify for ECFMG certification. Many of the Pakistani graduates did not meet the criteria listed in 5 pathways.

PMDC was not recognized by WFME and many of them did not have unsupervised medical  license as they did not have 1 year required house job.

This caused a significant hurdle for Pakistani Medical Graduates to qualify for ECFMG certification ,hence unable to participate in NRMP.

APPNA leadership contacted ECFMG as well as PMDC.

As a result ECFMG made significant changes including acceptance of passing bed side patient examination part of final year MBBS examination as a replacement for CS part of USMLE step 2 and  extended  the time bar from July 01,2018 to January 01,2018.ECFMG also added exception pathways to include more IMGs who did not qualify for the original 5 pathways.

Due to these changes in ECFMG pathways ,many of Pakistani medical graduates will qualify for ECFMG certification and able to participate in NRMP of 2021.

I am very grateful to Advocacy members for their hard  work, particularly to Shahzad Iqbal, Fateh Shahzad and to our President Naheed Usmani

Regards,

Abdul Rashid Piracha, MD, FACC
Chair Advocacy committee[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]