By Tere Figueras, The Miami Herald Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
May 7--Even as he piled watermelons at Winn-Dixie or cleaned out the garbage cans of accounting firms, Rene Rodriguez always kept a reminder of his former life close at hand, poring over his stash of medical journals on his lunch breaks.
'I felt stupid. I could diagnose anthrax, but I couldn't hammer a nail,' said Rodriguez, an epidemiologist and physician in Cuba who fled to the United States seven years ago. 'They would ask me if I had experience stocking apples or wiping floors. I didn't. All I knew was medicine.' Rodriguez and 41 other displaced foreign doctors now will get a shot at new careers in medicine.
This time, they'll be nurses.
The group will be the first students in Florida International University's foreign physicians program, which fast-tracks transplanted doctors through the School of Nursing's undergraduate program and into the workforce -- one of the novel approaches to relieving Florida's nursing shortage.
The would-be nurses, winnowed from a pool of almost 500 South Florida applicants, begin orientation this week.
Four local hospitals -- Mercy, Aventura and Kendall and Cedars medical centers -- are funding roughly two-thirds of the program, contributing $150,000 each for additional staffing, materials and partial scholarships. The foreign docs cover the rest of the expenses themselves -- roughly $5,000 for the two-year program, about the same as regular nursing students.
In return, the hospitals get a two-year commitment from a new batch of nurses upon graduation.
A fresh infusion of talent could ease a state nursing shortage that is the worst in 13 years and expected to grow, FIU School of Nursing dean Divina Grossman said.
According to the Florida Hospital Association, the state needs to add 26,000 nurses to its increasingly thinning -- and aging -- ranks and will need another 34,000 in the next four years as the state's population continues to grow and to age.
Schools across the state are partnering with hospitals, targeting high school students and minorities, and working to boost the professional image of nursing, said Sue Reed, president of the Orlando-based Florida Organization of Nurse Executives.
Officials in Orange County have pushed for a housing incentive to attract nurses. 'But that's robbing Peter to pay Paul,' said Reed.
'The FIU program brings new nurses in, not just move them from one place to another.' Another bonus of FIU's program, said Grossman: diversity.
'We need as many people from as many different backgrounds as we can.'
Marie Decatus ministered to the poorest communities in the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Despite earning a master's in public health at Columbia University and working as an assistant in a doctor's office, Decatus said she felt 'wasted and frustrated.'
'There is a language barrier that is sometimes very sad to see,' said Decatus, 50, who lives in Davie. 'I speak Creole, I have the knowledge, and now it's time to give.'
For Nigerian-born George Tissing, who was inspired to attend medical school by tales of missionary doctors in Africa, nursing is the next step in a spiritual quest to heal.
'God put me here to serve, and if I'm needed as a nurse, that's what I will do,' said Tissing, 34, who has worked with the poor in the Bahamas and Jamaica.
He has a master's in public health from FIU and lives in North Miami.
'Looking at this shortage, I realized you don't need to be a phlebotomist to help people,' he said.
Some of the students wanted to practice medicine in the United States but gave up their dream after realizing the time and money it would take to pass medical board exams and complete residencies.
'I watched my colleagues growing old and gray trying to become doctors here,' said Rodriguez, 35, now a security guard living in Kendall. 'I'm a nursing convert now.' Doctors in the two-year program are given credit for some of their earlier studies, like general education requirements and nursing prerequisites that have overlapped with their previous medical training. Although FIU has money only for the first round of students, Grossman hopes government grants and other local hospitals will keep the program afloat.
But the program is not without criticism.
Diane Horner, dean of the University of Miami's School of Nursing and president of the Nursing Shortage Consortium of South Florida, said that in almost two decades as head of UM's nursing program, she has seen only one foreign-licensed doctor graduate.
'It hasn't worked well. It's a matter of relating,' Horner said.
She said UM has no plans to create a similar program. Students used to having greater control over patient care as doctors often have trouble with their redefined roles as members of a medical team, she said. 'A physician's primary focus is to diagnose and treat. Nurses provide very holistic care.' Cheryl Peterson, a senior policy fellow for the Washington-based American Nurses Association, is equally skeptical.
'The question is, is this the best place for these resources?' Peterson asked, adding she is worried that doctors may use the program as a temporary fix before going on to get medical licenses.
'It's an innovative program and a creative program, but it needs to be studied.' FIU's dean counters that the number of foreign doctors living in South Florida could prove to be a much-needed and as-yet untapped resource.
'From a human resource perspective, the fact that we had 500 applicants with no advertising or marketing tells me there's a greater pool out there,' she said. 'I see it as community building.' Grossman stressed the FIU program is tailored to help former doctors adjust to their new roles.
Unlike UM's program, the 42 doctors turned nursing students won't be part of the mainstream nursing classes, allowing them to discuss topics with their peers. Students will also be required to take at least one 'role transition' seminar each semester.
Rodriguez, the Cuban doctor, said he's already dropping old habits.
'I still get faxes from old patients who live now in Texas or New York asking, `Doctor, what do you think of this or that?' ' he said. 'My mind is already switched, and my hands are tied. In this country, I'll be a nurse, and to me, that's a heroic thing.' But students still harboring ambitions of returning to their old jobs have already been given a not-so-gentle reminder of their new commitment.
'We told them any of them still actively pursuing their medical boards were not really wanted in the program,' Grossman said.
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(c) 2002, The Miami Herald. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
