This week, I had the pleasure of meeting with a group of medical students and residents at Saint Louis University Medical School. 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. 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.
