Professional and lay articles now appearing on immigrant physicians in the U.S. leave the impression that this is a quite new problem. In fact the earliest doctors in America were foreign medical graduates (FMGs), and for a couple of hundred years after that they were the most sought after practitioners in the Colonies. American medical school graduates date only from the 1760's, and until the beginning of this century the native-trained products of proprietary medical schools were viewed with considerable distrust. Respectable doctors had at least some European training.