If I told you that a medical student who received an MD and passed all of their clinical exams is working as a security guard, you’d probably think something went wrong.

Something has indeed gone wrong: our medical education system.

“Daniel” (name changed to protect his privacy) is one of many who have been harmed by restrictive and subjective rules and regulations in our state that restrict physicians from providing care in any form despite completing medical school. As a shortage of medical workers in our state only becomes more pressing, we need to adopt policies protecting the pipeline of medical education and physician support in our state.

Daniel recently told me his story, one of someone who was born and raised in Hartford County and wanted to enter the medical field since he was in junior high school out of a sense of desire to give back to his community and help treat those with illnesses. He went to Ross University, with education taking place in both the United States and Barbados, and completed his clinical training in New York City and Connecticut.

Due to Daniel’s scholarship not being a full loan, and his school’s location requiring overseas studies, he struggled financially at times when completing his studies. This challenge only grew as he faced the prospect of challenging and expensive medical exams, which could cost hundreds, even thousands, of dollars. He did whatever he could to make this situation work, including sleeping in hospital rooms during clinical rotations. These lengths showed his determination to complete his studies. However, despite having received his degree in the early 2000s and passing his step phases a few years later, his entire career hinged on his ability to get into a residency program.

Daniel described how the subjectivity of the clinical skills examination he took, and his inability to pass it, harmed his ability to succeed; he even would have received a job at a local hospital if not for the barrier of that final test. He claims his late passage and inability to afford the expensive exam, which required travel, wasn’t due to lack of skill, but the grading’s subjectivity and requirement of live performance.

Daniel, who is Black, said he heard from other minority students of similar challenges in their efforts, ones not faced by other students. The disparity was so noticeable that students working as tutors failed the exam, but those they tutored passed.

It took him a few years to pass the exam, and during this period, the capable and trained medical professional had to work security jobs to make ends meet. He was too qualified for non-doctoral health care positions but barred from practicing under the standards he met. To make matters worse, the exam in question was at one point, during the pandemic, removed as a requirement necessary to provide medical treatment.

Daniel’s story is one of thousands across the country. According to recent data, about 10% of people who have completed medical school do not get into residency programs. In the last decade, many states have created categories of graduate physicians who can be licensed and trained under other medically trained physicians to continue to get experience and thus improve their odds of completing their requirements. This not only helps them achieve their clinical goals and get into residency but provides much-needed help in primary care services.

It is time for Connecticut to join these states in creating a category of “graduate physicians” who can work under physicians in the much-needed field of internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics and psychiatry and subsequently be able to pursue their formal training and work toward independent practice.

We live in a world where someone like Daniel, who slept in empty hospital rooms and his car during his training and education periods, still cannot find work in the field he has trained to join. That, to me, is unacceptable. Someone so dedicated that they will make sacrifices to provide care should be welcomed into the fold. I hope we, as a state, can take steps to help him and many others in years to come.