Path to US practice is long slog to foreign doctors

Thousands of foreign-trained immigrant physicians are living in the United States with lifesaving skills that are going unused because they stumbled over one of the many hurdles in the path toward becoming a licensed doctor here. The involved testing process and often duplicative training these doctors must go through are intended to make sure they meet this country's high quality standards, which American medical industry groups say are unmatched elsewhere in the world. Some development experts are also loath to make it too easy for foreign doctors to practice here because of the risk of a "brain drain" abroad.