Evaluating the Call to 'Stop Stealing Doctors' from Overseas

In this episode of New Ideal Live, Elan Journo and Agustina Vergara Cid analyze the calls to ban doctors and other health care workers from developing countries to come work in the United States.

Topics covered include:

Why doctors decide to leave their home countries in the face of great obstacles;
Why some object to America’s “stealing” doctors from overseas;
The philosophical ideas behind the opposition to the immigration of doctors;
How altruism dehumanizes individual doctors in the name of the “needs” of society;
What’s wrong with the collectivist idea that doctors owe a “debt” to their home countries;
How to understand the shortage of doctors in underdeveloped countries;
The audacity of the indifference to the interests of doctors in the context of a pandemic;
Why doctors shouldn’t sacrifice themselves for their patients;
Why altruism is not motivated to alleviate suffering.

Mentioned in the discussion were Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged; “How Not to Fight Against Socialized Medicine” by Ayn Rand and “Medicine: The Death of a Profession” by Leonard Peikoff, from The Voice of Reason; “Is Atlas Shrugging?” by Ayn Rand from Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal; Ayn Rand’s radio talk “The Brain Drain” on ARI Campus, and Elan Journo’s article “Unsung Heroes of the Pandemic: Healthcare Professionals.”

This podcast was recorded on March 31, 2021. Listen to the discussion below. Listen and subscribe from your mobile device on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify or Stitcher. Watch archived podcasts here.