Graduates of international medical schools (IMGs) have long been a vital part of medicine in this country, caring for patients in dire need of physicians while navigating complex immigration, visa and licensing processes. Statistics show that, due to their visa requirements, they often practice in rural and other underserved areas where physicians are in short supply, and in subspecialties of increasing need among an aging population.
Monday, Oct. 19, will mark the start of AMA IMG Recognition Week, a time to take special note of the tremendous contributions that IMGs continue to make to U.S. medicine, to our physician workforce and to patient care.
Here are some of the many ways IMGs are helping shape American healthcare.
More than 25% of licensed U.S. doctors are IMGs, a group that includes both U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens who graduated from medical schools outside of the U.S. Of the IMGs who matched in the 2026 Main Residency Match, roughly 30% were U.S. citizens.
The share of physicians who graduated from medical school outside of the U.S. has grown by half a percentage point since 2010, but the true impact of IMGs goes beyond that figure.
A study recently published in JAMA, “Non-U.S.-Born Physicians in the U.S. Internal Medicine Workforce,” found that IMGs not born in the U.S. made up 36.1% of the internal medicine workforce in 2026. And IMGs born outside of the U.S. made up at least 27% of the doctors practicing in each internal medicine subspecialty and represented more than half of the internal medicine–certified geriatricians, sleep medicine physicians and nephrologists in the country.
The study’s authors noted that India and Pakistan contributed the most non-U.S.-born IMGs to the internal medicine workforce—10.8% and 3.8% of all internists, respectively.
Additionally, “non-U.S.-born physicians treated 22.5 million traditional Medicare beneficiaries,” the study says, and non-U.S. born IMGs treated 17.7 million traditional Medicare beneficiaries. Compared with U.S.-born medical graduates, a higher percentage of foreign-born physicians’ patients “were from low-income, disabled, Medicaid-eligible, and Black and Latino populations.”
According to the most recent census by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB), the largest number of licensed IMGs, either U.S. citizen or non-U.S. citizen, graduated from schools in the Caribbean (23%)—followed by India (21%), Pakistan (6%), the Philippines (4%) and Mexico (4%).
Additionally, a recently published study in JAMA Network Open, “H-1B Visa Restrictions and U.S. Primary Care Dependence on International Medical Graduates,” found that many non-U.S. citizen IMG residents were training in primary care specialties, and often fill training program positions that might otherwise have remained unfilled.
The data shows that non-U.S. citizen IMG physicians matched into residency programs in 2025 made up:
- 33.8% of internal medicine residents.
- 27.1% of pathology residents.
- 24.1% of neurology residents.
- 19.7% of pediatrics residents.
- 17.6% of family medicine residents.
Recent research also shows that the majority of the embedded chief residents in internal medicine training programs were IMGs.
Protecting IMGs now and in the future
Led by the policy work of the AMA International Medical Graduates Section (AMA-IMGS), the Association strongly advocates on vital issues such as:
- Expansion of the J-1 visa waiver program to more than 30 slots per state.
- Immigration, visa and green-card barriers and delays for IMGs.
- State licensure and examination parity.
- GME funding for more residency positions.
The AMA supports creating practice opportunities for IMGs as they provide care for underserved communities. Of particular importance is exempting physicians from the current $103,000 fee for H-1B visa applications, a move that would help the U.S. deal with a worsening physician shortage.
Data from the 2026 Main Residency Match showed that 56.4% of non-U.S. citizen IMGs matched, a 1.6% decline. Digging deeper into the numbers, however, raised questions about visa sponsorship and Match figures.
According to the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), non-U.S. citizen IMGs who required visa sponsorship had a 54.4% PGY-1 match rate, a five-year low, compared with a 67.9% match rate for non-citizen permanent legal U.S. resident IMGs (who did not require sponsorship), a five-year high. The highest match rate for non-U.S. citizen IMGs requiring a visa, 59.1%, occurred in 2023, while the match rate for non-U.S. citizen IMGs not requiring a visa peaked this year.
“These data highlight how broader policy conditions could shape future Match outcomes for non-U.S. citizen IMG candidates and inform future recruitment strategies of programs,” the NRMP said in its annual Match Day news release.
Read about AMA-IMGS policy and advocacy efforts, including an IMG physician toolkit to help navigate the process of practicing medicine in the U.S.
