Editor’s Note: Originally posted to the OOW Listerseve. If you can think of an idea, let Tania know via email or post in the comments section.

I am a PhD student at Brown University and a member of the OOW section of ASA. I was wondering if it might be possible to issue a query to the OOW listserv regarding something that has come up in my dissertation work. I study internal medicine residents and have found there to be significant preference (and some might say bias) towards graduates from US allopathic medical schools, even though fewer than 50% of residents in internal medicine graduated from such schools (the rest are foreigners who trained at  foreign medical schools, Americans who studied at Caribbean medical schools or Americans who studied at osteopathic institutions). So I wanted to query to listserv to see if anyone knows of another American profession where such a premium is placed on having trained in the US. In some professions (such as computer science), I’m inclined to think that this same preference is not as strong. In other professions (such as law), it is very difficult for individuals trained outside the US to penetrate the profession. The medical profession, however, relies on foreign and osteopathic trained professionals to fill a critical gap in the training workforce, all the while privileging US medical grads over all others. Can anyone think of a parallel in any other profession?

Tania M. Jenkins, M.A.
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Sociology, Box 1916
Brown University
tania_jenkins@brown.edu