The fact that many OECD countries are reliant on international medical graduates (IMGs) to serve their most vulnerable has become even more apparent in the wake of Covid-19. This dissertation examines the role that nation brands play on the international physician labor market and how visa regimes and migration industries shape IMG pathways to Sweden versus US; two widely different societies where around a third of all doctors are IMGs. The US and Sweden represent two different approaches to addressing the same problem — solving a shortfall of healthcare providers, especially in rural areas populated by ethnic minorities and low-income families. While many Swedish regions actively attempts to facilitate the incorporation of IMGs through an intra-European physician recruitment industry, the US seem to rely on the attraction of its political economy and has done little to modify the substantial financial and visa-related obstacles that IMGs face. As a high-skilled immigrant group, immigrant physicians occupy a complex position of advantage and disadvantage; they are privileged in comparison to low-income migrant workers and unauthorized immigrants, yet face more barriers in comparison to domestic physicians, and are often informally sorted into less prestigious positions. This study centers the two largest immigrant physician groups in each country: Indians in the US and Poles in Sweden. The experiences of these labor migrants are triangulated against a third IMG group that have undergone the asylum process in order to reach their host societies — Iraqis. / 2025-05-11T00:00:00Z