When Celia Mantovani moved to Maine from Brazil six years ago, she came with more than two decades of experience as a psychiatrist working in hospitals and universities.
“I was at the top of the game in my career there,” Mantovani said.
But since her job at the University of New England ended in 2018, Mantovani has been adrift, fighting against a system that seems intent on preventing her from practicing medicine because she does not have a U.S. education or credentials. Becoming a doctor in Maine would require starting at the bottom, with years of residency and exams, more than two decades after earning her medical degree and Ph.D.
After two years of fruitless job searches, Mantovani got a contract position investigating COVID-19 outbreaks for Maine’s public health authority. She’s still not sure what happens when the job ends, but is considering certification as a therapist.
“I really don’t understand why a country that needs skilled physicians doesn’t open a different path for people who are legally here,” Mantovani said. “We are not in competition with American doctors, but we could make a difference in so many places.”
Hundreds of immigrants have moved to Maine in recent years, including highly trained, well-educated professionals with vital skills employers in the state desperately want.
But even those highly skilled immigrants have been sidelined by inadequate English language training opportunities and a bewildering patchwork of education, certification and licensing requirements that make restarting their careers an expensive, exhausting process.
By one estimate, more than 2,000 college-educated immigrants are unemployed or underemployed in the state. Workforce development leaders refer to the problem as “brain waste.”
“Right now, people most of the time have to start at zero, which is discouraging, which is expensive, so a lot of people don’t do it,” said Julia Trujillo, director of Portland’s Office of Economic Opportunity.
LANGUAGE BARRIER
Immigrants in Maine tend to be more highly educated than the U.S.-born population, according to New American Economy, a pro-economic-growth research organization. About 22 percent of the nearly 50,000 immigrants living in Maine hold bachelor’s degrees, compared with 20 percent of the U.S.-born population, and more than 18 percent of the foreign-born population hold a graduate degree, compared with 12 percent of the U.S.-born population, the group estimates.
Those are the sort of skilled workers Maine employers scramble to recruit….
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