Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan, a professor of health policy and pediatrics at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., has studied the "reverse brain drain" in India — and says India needs to keep more of its medical professionals at home. Mullan talks with Melissa Block.
He sees what he calls a "trendlet" of doctors leaving the United States and going back to India. But he says they tend to practice in elite institutions that don't serve the needs of the vast majority of Indians. He says the training and values in India's medical system must change.
Contributing to India's problem, he says, is the fact that the West undertrains doctors and nurses, creating a vacuum — "an irresistibly appealing vacuum to ambitious, well-trained people in the developing world."
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