Utilize the medical talents of our immigrant population

I was approached by a woman who spoke in a thick Russian accent after a town-hall meeting I hosted earlier this year. She had recently emigrated from Russia and now was building a future in Washington state. In her home country, she had a professional medical career as a nurse. Now here, in Washington, she was struggling to find meaningful employment. She told me of her difficulty understanding and navigating the process to have her Russian nursing credentials verified and evaluated in order to become recertified as a nurse here.

Immigrant and refugee families come to the United States seeking a gateway to opportunity where their dreams of prosperity and a better future for their children can be fulfilled. These hopes often prove elusive as they struggle to find employment, which is the first step toward realizing the American dream.

Many internationally trained health-care professionals living here find their talents and training are not utilized. This unfortunate fact is especially tragic considering the tremendous demand for qualified health-care professionals in our local communities.

All too often, the difference between utilizing the skills of internationally trained doctors or allowing their skills to languish comes down to a single factor such as language skills or even the ability to navigate complex bureaucracies. By creating opportunities for recent immigrants to receive short-term professional courses, language assistance or career coaching, we can utilize this untapped talent pool.

A new and exciting partnership in South King County seeks to help meet critical personnel shortages in the health-care industry by assisting immigrants with professional medical backgrounds in becoming recertified in our state.

Highline Community College and BuRSST for Prosperity, a local poverty-reduction initiative, have teamed up to develop a program called the Gateway Center. Modeled after a successful program in California, the Gateway Center will provide short-term professional courses, English-language assistance and career coaching. The program will also provide assistance navigating the process and paperwork.

Nursing is the highest-demand occupation in the state, with hospitals spending thousands of dollars to recruit and train people to fill these positions. Staffing shortages are clogging up local hospitals and delaying care. Our local health-care needs would be better met by quickly filling vacancies with currently untapped medical professionals.

Moreover, the health-care industry provides high-wage jobs with benefits, which will lead families on the path to self-sufficiency. The result will be more qualified health-care professionals and more families lifted out of poverty.

Finally, the unmet need for health care within diverse communities is increasing. Who better to administer care in these communities than those who speak their language, understand their culture or simply know what it is like to be new to this country?

Gateway Center will build a bridge between the pool of internationally trained health workers living in Washington and the need for linguistically and culturally competent health services in underserved communities.

The benefits of the Gateway Center are obvious. In the upcoming legislative session, I hope the state will partner with Highline Community College and BuRSST to open this gateway to opportunity.

The goal is to open the doors of the Gateway Center next September. By maximizing the skills and abilities of every member of our community, we can finally recognize that our diversity is our strength.