Enforcing the rules

Friday, Feb. 15, 2008 | 2:08 a.m.

State regulators have started taking appropriate and long overdue steps to crack down on abuse in a program designed to bring foreign doctors to areas without enough physicians.

Since September, Las Vegas Sun reporter Marshall Allen has detailed the problems with the “J-1” visa program. Some employers have treated the foreign doctors almost as indentured servants, withholding promised wages, forcing them to work long hours and reneging on visa agreements by pulling them out of underserved areas to have them work in areas where they can make more money for their employers.

State officials were initially slow to act and foreign doctors were afraid to press the issue for fear of angering their employers, who sponsor their visas. State officials said they would not investigate past complaints and had failed, as promised, to check whether employers were complying with the program’s requirements.

Richard Whitley, the new head of the Nevada State Health Division, recently put Lynn O’Mara, program manager of the Health Planning and Statistics Bureau, in charge of the program.

O’Mara is in the process of implementing some much-needed changes to tighten oversight that include creating an independent panel to oversee the program; working on formal policies and procedures; conducting regular checks on doctors and employers; and investigating past violations.

Larry Matheis, executive director of the Nevada State Medical Association, hailed the planned changes. He called the J-1 program a “win-win,” which it certainly can be if run properly.

Created by Congress, the program allows foreign doctors to come to America for medical training and extend their visas if they pledge to work in underserved areas for three to five years. Those areas include rural Nevada and less affluent parts of the Las Vegas Valley where residents do not have easy access to doctors.

This is a valuable program, and we hope the state’s new attempt at oversight will mean foreign doctors are treated humanely while serving in areas that need doctors. That would be a real win-win.