This week I heard from a student in her third year of medical school. To date, she has borrowed more than $100,000 to fund her education. She is in the top 10% of her class, with honors in all of her subjects and high scores on her national exams. She would be a valued resident in the most competitive specialty training programs. Her goal is to become a primary care physician and offer her expertise to a diverse set of patients, leveraging the multiple languages she speaks fluently. But because she was born in a Middle Eastern country, she has a problem.

She wrote to me that she suddenly faces uncertainty about her status in the U.S. and about the possibility she will be forced to leave without completing her final year of medical school. Were that to happen, she would have wasted the time and the money she has already had invested. She accepted the reality that as someone from another nation, she would need to be exceptional to fulfill her dream. But now she worries that she could be required to leave no matter how well she performs.

And the same is true for nurses, laboratory technicians and doctors born in other countries but already established in practice in the U.S. The rules they will need to live by in the future are unclear and ever-changing. Which countries will be impacted? Will the requirements to leave apply to individuals on student visas and green cards and even to naturalized citizens?

How Anxiety Is Eclipsing Fear

Imagine how you would feel going to sleep at night worried about what you will read in the newspaper the next morning. Everything you value is at risk, including your health.