PRESTONSBURG, Ky. — Veterans protested Tuesday outside a Veterans Affairs clinic where two part-time American physicians have been relieved of duties, leaving only three doctors from the Middle East to cover the patient load.

        “We want to keep American doctors,” said a placard being waved by Tom DeRossett, a Vietnam veteran from Van Lear.

        “We want to be able to understand what the doctors tell us,” Mr. DeRossett said. “It's not the idea that the doctors in there are from the Middle East. We simply want English-speaking doctors.”

        Some 60 veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam picketed Tuesday alongside a busy road outside the clinic in eastern Kentucky, drawing supportive honks from passing motorists, including blasts from the air horns of the many coal trucks that use the route.

        Dr. Jeffery Breaux, medical director at the clinic, said the protests grew from an administrative decision to use only full-time physicians at the clinic to ensure that patients don't have to spend a long time in waiting rooms. The decision was met with anger from many of the patients.

        “A lot of the older veterans are getting to the place that we don't hear as well as we used to,” said Lindsey Childers, a WWII veteran from Meally. “It's hard for us to understand what these foreign doctors are telling us.”

        In Appalachia, which has far fewer doctors than urbanized areas, the federal government encourages foreign doctors to set up practice. The Appalachian Regional Commission, which helps foreign physicians get visas, has urged residents to treat them respectfully.

        That action came after a Jordanian physician in Harlan County received a threatening fax and a doctor who was a native of India was handcuffed by police when he got off a Greyhound bus in Charleston, W.Va.

        Dr. Ronald Mann, who along with Dr. William Fannin was relieved of duties, said he understands the veterans' concerns.

        “Many of the older veterans have hearing problems from concussions or the noise of machinery,” he said. “They need people who articulate extremely well. Some of them just don't want to see people of other cultures.”

        Dr. Breaux said all of the foreign physicians speak English.

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