The United States was already in the midst of a deep shortage of medical professionals, and that problem has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new report by the Migration Policy Institute explores whether a bit of the challenge can be reduced by enlisting some immigrants and refugees who have undergraduate degrees in some sort of health field but aren’t currently holding those kinds of jobs in the U.S.

The analysis finds 263,000 immigrants and refugees fit into that category.

The Show spoke about the analysis with Michael Fix, a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute, its former president and one of the report's authors.

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