Recent Trends in International Migration of Doctors, Nurses and Medical Students
This report describes recent trends in the international migration of doctors and nurses in OECD countries. Over the past decade, the number of doctors and nurses has increased in many OECD countries, and foreign-born and foreign-trained doctors and nurses have contributed to a significant extent. New in-depth analysis of the internationalisation of medical education shows that in some countries (e.g. Israel, Norway, Sweden and the United States) a large and growing number of foreign-trained doctors are people born in these countries who obtained their first medical degree abroad before coming back. The report includes four case studies on the internationalisation of medical education in Europe (France, Ireland, Poland and Romania) as well as a case study on the integration of foreign-trained doctors in Canada.
International students in Polish medical schools
Since 1993, most Polish medical schools have opened full-cycle study programmes in English for international students seeking education outside their home country either due to high tuition fees or limits on student intake. The schools continually adapt their international offer and promote recognition of their degrees also outside the European Union. Initially, the schools attracted students mainly from the United States; later also from Middle Eastern and South-East Asian countries; more recently from Norway, Sweden and Canada, and increasingly also from India. International students bring additional income for the schools; this helps to increase the attractiveness of faculty jobs, thereby addressing the emigration of medical educators from Poland. Simultaneously, meeting the domestic demand for medical graduates has been prioritised by the government: the capacity in Polish programmes has increased much more rapidly than in the English programmes. While the number of domestic medical graduates has increased, the emigration of Polish doctors is a concern.