Column

Brilliance is there, but green card is not

SOKOL E-mail: Click here

CROSS CREEK - The house on Rockrose Drive, like others around it, flies American flags over the lawn. Inside, framed awards and proclamations crowd the walls of the eldest child's bedroom.

This is the home of a future doctor, recognized for public service and superb academics. She studied classical piano in Toronto, her birthplace. A Student Service award bears the signature of George W. Bush.

When Juno Paramadevan graduated this month from the University of South Florida as Outstanding Senior, they gave her an entire page in the commencement program.

She is eager to study medicine at Florida State University. She's already cut up her first cadaver.

But this brilliant young woman with cascading crimson hair cannot go to medical school. Not in Florida, not now.

She has no green card.

Ah, the green card. If you know anyone who's tried to get one, you know it takes years.

It's not that the people on Rockrose Drive haven't tried. Originally from Sri Lanka, they moved here in 1999 so Juno's father, Paramadevan Sinnadurai could take a computer job. His employer sponsored him for the green card, but he's been through two corporate layoffs. Each time he starts a job, he must start over.

Juno, 22, is working on getting her own green card. But who knows how long it will take? FSU will hold her seat for one year.

"It's a long shot," Juno says.

You might want to blame the Paramadevans' problems on the terror attacks of 2001, which made our government look more warily at people born outside the United States.

But that's only a tiny part of the problem.

Medical training is expensive. And the state's medical colleges exist not so much for the students, but to produce doctors to treat Florida's future population. University officials look for assurances that those who study here will stay.

"It's not just like this in this state, but I imagine in every state in the U.S.," says Dr. Myra Hurt, associate dean for student affairs, admission and outreach at FSU.

So it doesn't matter that Juno went through USF on a Bright Futures scholarship, that her parents own a 3,000-square-foot home in New Tampa or that, when asked why she doesn't go back to Canada, she declares, "I prefer to stay here." In the state's eyes, she's competing against far stronger claims on scarce resources.

The list of Juno's accomplishments is almost too long to print here. It consumes several pages of a single space-typed resume.

She works at the Roskamp Institute and volunteered at USF's Memory Disorder Clinic. She has tended to dying patients at LifePath Hospice. She has helped elementary students learn how to read. She has served meals at Metropolitan Ministries.

She has wanted to be a doctor "ever since high school," she said. She doesn't mind being around terminal patients. "It's sad at first, but you get used to it. You try not to get too emotionally attached."

Nor did she recoil from the gross anatomy class she took as an undergraduate honor student. "I have a very strong stomach," she said.

Medicine is "a calling." She's leaning toward psychiatry or cardiology.

If she is frustrated, she conceals it better than her parents.

"Look at all her credentials," her father said. "She is an outstanding student from Day 1. She has been on the dean's list from Day 1. They should be proud to have her in the medical college."

He wonders: Why did no one ask to see Juno's green card when she volunteered at the blood bank or at the hospice or in the tutoring program?

Why, by sheer accident of her birthplace, does Florida treat her differently?

He points out that the green card requirement is a policy, not a law. True, FSU officials say. But the Legislature watches medical schools closely, with the overriding goal to use that training right here in Florida.

Juno's prognosis is not all grim.

If her green card is "imminent" in a year - meaning, a sure thing, all but in the mail - the college could work with her, said Dr. Helen Livingston, assistant dean for admissions. Even if it takes two or three years, she and Hurt say Juno stands an excellent chance at any medical college in the state.

"We could not comment on her credentials, but we would say obviously, she's the kind of student we're looking for," Hurt said.

For now, Juno plans to work toward a master's degree in business administration at USF. The training will help her manage a medical practice. And, she said, "I don't want to waste a year."

I remarked that the MBA is more impressive than clerking at a video store. "I couldn't do that anyway," she quipped, revealing a necessary sense of irony. "I don't have a green card."

Yes, we treat people differently. A child born on Rockrose Drive would not face this particular obstacle on the road to this particular dream.

But make no mistake. This is the house of a future doctor.

© 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times 490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 Contact the Times | Privacy Policy Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright