Temporary Migration for Training: A Special Case

Mohammed Abdelrahman*, Adrien Yvon, Yu Ray Chen, Janet Grant

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal Article peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Background Against a background of globalization and medical migration, issues have been raised regarding training outside the clinician's own context. Objective There is a dearth of published literature on these issues and we aimed to explore these. Methods Taking Chang Gung Memorial Hospital fellowships in microfacial and craniofacial surgery as our case study, we developed an online survey to look at the circumstances leading junior doctors to seek specific, high-level training outside their country of intended practice and how effective this was for their future career, the service they provide, and their institutions. Results Fellows come to the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital predominantly from Europe, North America, and Asia, rather than specifically from developing countries. The predominant reasons were professional, personal, and to gain training that was not available at home, followed by career development. The fellowship was not commonly used as a career step or a means of migration. Our results showed that most fellows received training that enabled them to provide a service for complex cases on returning to their home country. Implementing newly acquired skills at home did not present any consistent challenges for fellows. Conclusions This study addressed a new phenomenon for the literature on medical migration: Temporary migration from developed countries for the purposes of training and not permanent migration. The motivation for seeking these fellowships was to make up for training opportunities that were not available in highly planned health economies. To develop their practice in their home institutions, fellows often had to make adjustments to ensure effective transfer of skills and, in doing so, contribute to service development.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)493-499
Number of pages7
JournalAnnals of Plastic Surgery
Volume83
Issue number5
DOIs
StatePublished - 01 11 2019

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • fellowship
  • plastic surgery
  • temporary migration
  • training

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