Beschreibung

Due to the current shortage of medical doctors in Germany, hospital administrations increasingly recruit physicians from abroad to meet their demand. Relaxed migration policies and access regulations to the medical profession enable the formal recognition of these physicians’ qualifications. However, the question remains whether these measures suffice to ensure a smooth transfer of professional knowledge and skills. Research on the migration of highly skilled migrants has thus far predominantly focused on macro-structural aspects, whereas their actual integration at the workplace remains largely unexplored. The author investigates such micro processes of integration into the work environment in the case of Central and Eastern European migrant physicians in German hospitals, and attempts to understand the relationship between formal and informal aspects of integration and recognition.

The number of Central and Eastern European (CEE) migrant physicians in German hospitals has increased tremendously within recent years. This is an effect of the current shortage of physicians in Germany that is being addressed with the liberalisation of immigration policies, as well as of regulations controlling access to the medical profession. However, researchers strongly argue that despite the ensured formal recognition of professional qualifications, migrants often encounter barriers to their incorporation at the workplace (e.g. Nohl et al. 2014; Favell et al. 2007). Thus, the relaxation of regulations appears as a necessary, but not sufficient condition to ensure equal access to, and equal participation in the labour market.

The author investigates the micro processes of the migration and recruitment of CEE migrant physicians to German hospitals, given the context of the opening at a structural level. She explores the circumstances of this medical migration in terms of institutional strategies of recruitment on the part of hospital administrations, and the motives and migration strategies of the physicians. Additionally, the author investigates how the physicians subjectively perceive their migration and how they cope with their situation on-site.

A qualitative exploratory research design is applied. Expert interviews with human resource managers and medical directors are used to gain procedural knowledge about the recruitment forming the institutional context of the study. Problem-centred interviews with CEE migrant physicians are used to generate the interpretational patterns and coping strategies of the migrant doctors.

Taken together, the findings reveal that the liberalisations on the policy level are far from sufficient in enabling frictionless mobility, although they are a crucial and necessary component for attracting migrant physicians. Despite the strong demand for physicians, there remains a reluctance towards their recruitment on the part of various actors involved. Together with implicit normative and cultural rules this poses significant barriers to the immediate transfer of the migrant physicians’ professional knowledge and skills.

Focussing on CEE migrant physicians in German hospitals, this study gives visibility to highly skilled East-West migration and to CEE migrants as ‘EU movers’. Moreover, researching work place integration of highly-skilled migrants, the study contributes to the investigation of the widely neglected “human face” of migration (Favell et al. 2007).

Table of Contents

The author:

Dr. Juliane Klein,
Universität Bremen, Germany

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Autor*innen

Juliane Klein

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Keywords

Highly qualified migrants, Migrant physicians, Professional knowledge, Work migration