Halle T. Debas

"Brain drain has become a major problem in African countries over the last 20 years," said Halle T. Debas, M.D., executive director of UCSF Global Health Sciences."Taxpayers educate them, and then they go.And they can ill afford the loss."

Debas cited two glaring examples.Zambia has trained 500 doctors since its independence; now only 50 remain.In Ghana 50 percent of the medical graduates have gone abroad.

"They have no professional satisfaction, no infrastructure, no colleagues, no resources," Debas says, explaining why so many medical graduates in underdeveloped countries leave their native lands.