ST. PAUL -- Obstetrician Natalya Lyadova led a team of five doctors and 10 nurses at a clinic in her native Ukraine.
Now, as an immigrant struggling to learn English in St. Paul, she is setting off on a long road toward resuming her medical career.
Like thousands of medical professionals from other countries, Lyadova has discovered that before she can treat people here, she must complete a rigorous, expensive and time-consuming process.
A $450,000 state grant to three Minnesota agencies aims to give these much-needed doctors and nurses a hand. The goals are to get them into the field more quickly and, in some cases, put them to work in immigrant communities that need their language and cultural skills.
The agencies help immigrants pay for classes, tests and travel to testing sites. They also give guidance to the doctors, nurses and other health workers trying to make their way through the maze of required steps.
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"When I came here, I understood it would be a long way to be a physician in this country," said Lyadova, 33, who lives with her husband and two young children. "But I have knowledge, I have experience and I have my wish to be a doctor. I am homesick for my profession."
Carol DaBruzzi of the International Institute of Minnesota said she has worked for several years with little funding until now trying to help people like Lyadova.
"I had a woman surgeon from Moscow who was working in the surgical theater (here), but as a person who would sterilize the instruments," DaBruzzi said. "The way it's set up now, it is kind of like we're using a weapon against them. We're making it harder."
DaBruzzi said she and the immigrants she works with agree the state must verify credentials and require tests and training. But DaBruzzi said the licensing process should not be impossible to complete.
One current barrier is that doctors must find a licensed physician here who is willing to let the new arrivals "shadow" them before they will be allowed to do a residency. But there is no formal application process to get immigrants into a mentoring situation, DaBruzzi said.
DaBruzzi is working with Peter Chweyah, 45, a physician from Kenya who arrived in Minnesota in 2004.
Chweyah has just taken the fourth test in a two-day process required to practice here, part of the U.S. Medical Licensing Examination. The grant money paid the $785 test fee.
Chweyah studied daily for the test, after helping get his four children off to school and before his 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. shift as a medical assembly line worker at Medtronic.
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Now he must be accepted into a residency program.
"Things are not very easy," he said.
