Country Doctor

LEON KINTAUDI

We're used to hearing about the financial aid that industrialized countries provide developing nations. So it's a bit of a jolt to realize how often poor countries end up subsidizing rich ones. Case in point: the accelerating brain drain out of Africa of highly skilled medical personnel to fill higher-paying positions in Europe and North America. A report in 2004 found that more than 5,300 doctors who attended medical schools in sub-Saharan Africa--almost entirely at public expense--now practice in the U.S. (An additional 3,500 or so are working in Britain.) An editorial in last week's New England Journal of Medicine called...

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