This week, I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of medical students and residents at Saint Louis University Medical School. Â At the kind invitation of Dr. Julie Gammack, Assistant Dean, Graduate Medical Education, we spent over an hour discussing the ins-and-outs of U.S. immigration law.
We talked about the immigration hierarchy, from U.S. citizenship through the green card process, employment visas and the various student visas. Â We spent a significant portion of our time together discussing the J-1 visa and the various (difficult) methods of obtaining a waiver of the two-year home return requirement under federal law.
We expected a turnout of ten to fifteen students, so Dr. Gammack and I were both very pleased when almost thirty students attended the session.  After my initial Power Point presentation, we spent more than half the time answering questions.  The residents had a lot of good advice for the F-1 medical students, including things to beware of when changing to J-1 status and how difficult it can be to find a facility to sponsor foreign born medical students for an H-1B employment visa.
The students were very appreciative of the time spent and we hope to reconvene in the near future.
