General Surgery Residency After Graduation From US Medical Schools Visa-Related Challenges for the International Citizen

International-United States medical graduates (I-USMGs) are non-US citizen graduates of US medical schools. Although academically equivalent to US-citizen peers, they are subject to the same visa requirements as non-US citizen international medical graduates. We hypothesized that visa sponsorship policies of general surgery programs (GSPs) may be discordant with the enrollment patterns of I-USMGs. A total of 196 GSPs participated in a telephone survey regarding visa sponsorship policies. Whereas GSPs preferred J-1 to H-1B sponsorship (64.2% vs 32.6%), I-USMG enrollment favored programs supporting H-1B sponsorship (72.1% vs 7.5%) (P=.01). University-affiliated programs were more likely to sponsor H1-Bs than independent programs (39.6% vs 24.4%) (P=.03) and trained a greater proportion of I-USMGs than independent programs (40.6% vs 14.0%) (P<.01). Restrictive policies against H-1B sponsorship may limit GSPs' I-USMG applicant pool and restrict I-USMGs' surgical training options. JAMA Surg. 2013;148(3):292-294