Mr. President: Today. I am introducing a bill to permanently reauthorize the Conrad 30 visa waiver program to provide medical care to underserved rural America. One of the top concerns of North Dakota community leaders and hospital officials is the challenge of recruiting and keeping capable. quality doctors. In response. I created this visa waiver program in 1994 to recruit highly qualified foreign physicians to medically underserved areas. This program was meant to help many areas across the country. especially rural communities that have a difficult time recruiting doctors. get access to primary health care. It has proven to be one of our Nations top tools to recruit and keep doctors in our rural communities. The Conrad 30 program allows a State agency to grant visa waivers to foreign medical graduates who are in the United States for their residencies on foreign exchange J1 visas. To qualify for the waiver. the physician undergoes numerous background and security checks. and must agree to serve a medically underserved community for three years. In exchange. the physicians requirement to return to his home country for a period of time before applying for a work visa is waived so that we can utilize them in underserved areas. Since the program was implemented in 1994. North Dakota has received a total of 90 Conrad State 30 J1 visa waiver doctors in communities all over the State. Nearly every rural hospital in the Stateand many of clinicshave benefited from the program. For example.
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