What steps should young doctors make towards their career development?
- Category: Career Development for Physicians
- Published on: Monday, 24 February 2014
Young people who choose Medicine for their profession are usually those who enjoy helping others and being useful is a mission for them. The feeling that you can change someone’s life for the better, save a life or see the good consequences of your efforts for solving a problem – these are the things which make the time spent at work meaningful.
Except the pleasure from doing their job very well, medical specialists want to be rewarded the way they deserve and to be offered opportunities for a good professional development.
The development of physicians can happen in two directions – horizontally (by becoming better at putting diagnoses and curing their patients) and vertically (by climbing the hierarchical ladder). Most medical specialists derive pleasure from their job provided that they develop both horizontally and vertically.
In order to make this happen, doctors need to take a few well-planned steps.
1. Choosing a university
The first step is taking the decision which university to apply for. Except the good medical equipment and the image of the lecturers, another important criterion is the international connections of the university with foreign universities and research centres which increases the chances for students to gain international experience.
Why is international experience so important?
The world is changing towards a removal of the health care borders. People will be able to freely search for medical help in foreign countries where huge innovative health centres will be built. These centres will have the potential to serve thousands of people. There is a tendency for small hospitals to become part of the structure of bigger, much more financially powerful hospitals. These enormous centres will need medical specialists with international experience to cope with serving foreign patients.
Nowadays, preparing for a career in the international area is equivalent to freedom of choice. If a doctor isn’t satisfied with the working conditions in their country or they want to make a big change in their life, then they can move to a foreign country and apply for a job position anywhere in the world where their qualifications are recognized.
For EU citizens this means opportunities for a career development in any EU member state since all medical diplomas issued by universities situated on the territory of the EU are internationally recognized.
Another good opportunity for getting international experience while studying Medicine is applying for a university in Eastern Europe where taxes are relatively low and the university hospitals have modern facilities and equipment. These medical universities strive for gaining competitive advantages through implementing innovative teaching methods like the 3D training at the Medical University in the town of Pleven, Bulgaria.
In the beginning of 2014 the Bulgarian Medical University in Plovdiv won an award for being “The best university in Southeast Europe”, given by the Europe Business Assembly and the International Socrates Committee. When a foreign student studies in such a university, they learn a lot about the culture of a European country, enrich their personality and master another European language.
The knowledge of several European languages is important for a career in the EU because even if a physician works in their native country, they will inevitably encounter foreign patients or immigrants. In Germany multilingual medical specialists are highly valued because they can communicate with representatives of other cultures.
The European parliament has set a goal to facilitate as much as possible the mobility of medical specialists. It has recently modernized the Directive of Professional qualifications (Directive 2005/36/EC). One of the new things is the creation of the European Professional Card - an electronic certificate to allow the cardholder to obtain the recognition of his or her qualifications in a simplified and accelerated manner. This will allow doctors to move from one country to another much faster than before.
When a 19-year old young person is trying to make an important decision like which university to apply for, it is better to rely on the services of a competent consultancy like Forum der Medizin to help him/her get oriented in the sea of opportunities. Studying Medicine is a huge investment of financial means and time and the aim is to derive maximum benefits from the university education in terms of future career prospects.
2. Choosing what to specialize in
You need to determine whether you want to do clinical activity, ambulatory service, or health management.
Health management is an area which will become more and more significant due to the growing need for good management in the newly-built tremendous hospital chains.
One of the criteria for determining what to specialize in is the internal feeling of students while studying the different university subjects as well as during their clinical practice. If they feel drawn to a certain area, this should be their biggest reference point and not things like the opinion of friends, relatives and parents.
And yet, if a student cannot feel what attracts them the most, they can rely again on the assistance of a consultancy to help them determine the most suitable specialization for them based on personality traits, goals and values.
3. Choosing an employer
The next step is applying for a job in the native or a foreign country. The different employers focus on the development of different aspects of their hospitals. Some of them think that the luxurious working environment is a priority. Other employers provide very good training opportunities for their employees while a third group of hospital managers take measures to ensure a more flexible working time and health care for the physicians. Hospitals have a different policy regarding the service of patients, the bureaucratic procedures, etc. All these criteria should be taken into consideration by doctors when making a decision where to apply for a job.
A person can come across a lot of misleading information in the Internet about the working conditions in different hospitals. Your career depends to a great extent on your chance to make a well-informed decision. Professional consultants specialized in providing career support to medical specialists can give you their objective viewpoint on a great number of employers. Consultancies are not financially tied to hospitals. This means that consultants can offer you a critical opinion about different employers.
4. Individual coaching for solving work and personal issues
Finding a good employer isn’t the last step towards a career growth. Physicians’ profession is connected with a lot of responsibilities and challenges.
They are required to be able to work independently and in a team, to be able to win patients’ trust, to react calmly in urgent and stressful situations. Sometimes medical specialists might face personal crises which affect the quality of their work. Keeping the balance between private life and work is also an important issue because it influences doctors’ health, satisfaction and ability to concentrate. At such points in their lives, it is recommendable that physicians search for professional help in the form of individual coaching so that they will be able to find a way out of the crisis in the best and least painful way. Seeking such kind of support isn’t a weakness at all. In fact, it is one of the smartest investments a doctor can make into his/her career and personal happiness.
The article was created with the cooperation of Dr Meridonov
The text was written by: Mariya Dim
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How can young doctors deal with stress?
- Category: Career Development for Physicians
- Published on: Monday, 24 February 2014
The question about dealing with stress is so often discussed that it has become banal. It is a fact, however, that the majority of the world population still ignores the chronic stress until the consequences become clearly noticeable – impoverished health, burnout, lower efficiency at work, etc. Physicians are among these professionals who need to develop good skills for dealing with stress since the jobs in the medical field are connected with facing difficult and urgent situations every day.
It seems logical that people who have dedicated themselves to preserving human health – doctors, should be an example of timely taking measures against the consequences of chronic stress. Unfortunately, things are very different in reality. A great number of medical specialists find themselves unpleasantly surprised, when exactly like their patients, they develop an illness as a result of total physical and psychological exhaustion. It is hard for many physicians to accept that they too are vulnerable and they sometimes need the help of consultancies, mentors or individual coaching. They start changing their lifestyle only when the change is inevitable. To say that you don’t have time to change your thinking or lifestyle is like saying that you don’t have time to stop and fill the tank of your car because you are busy with the driving – eventually you will have no other choice. The career of such doctors is suffering, their family is suffering and the life of these doctors is shattered because they haven’t paid attention earlier.
If you are a young medical specialist, striving for achievements in your profession, place your health in the beginning of your list of priorities. Yes, doctors’ profession isn’t one of the easiest since it is connected with illnesses, human pain and a lot of stressful situations. However, the most important thing is not the situation itself, but how a person reacts to it. Physicians can do a lot of things to neutralize the effects of stress. Even the most resilient people have to keep their health in focus.
More and more employers in the health care sector realize that it is important to take care of their employees’ health. In many hospitals the working time has become more flexible and programs for preserving staff’s health have been implemented.
What can doctors do to reduce the negative impact of stress?
Stress is a state in which the body prepares itself for a “fight or flight” response towards a threat. The stress hormones arouse the organism and create a great amount of energy. If it is not expended in physical activity, a person can remain in this state of overexcitation for many hours. When this repeats every day, the organism pays a huge price.
The time-tested ways of dealing successfully with stress are:
1. Aerobic training
Aerobic workouts are an irreplaceable means for neutralizing the effects of stress. This type of physical activity expends the extra energy and releases the tension built up in muscles. The result is a sensation of relaxation, pleasant physical tiredness and a serene mind. Fast walking, riding a bike, swimming and dancing are different alternatives to training in the gym. You will be able to believe in the positive effect of sport only after you have practiced it regularly for at least one month.
2. Avoid drinking coffee
Even when you know that drinking coffee makes you nervous, it might be hard to give it up as it is the case with any long-established habit. Besides, giving up coffee abruptly may cause headaches similar to migraine. The best way is to do it gradually and try to perceive it as an experiment. Reduce the cups one by one until you reach the number zero. Then, restrain yourself from drinking coffee for 3 weeks and see how you feel. If you think that the tension and feeling of distress hasn’t diminished, you can go back to drinking coffee if you wish. Most people stop the consummation of this drink after this experiment.
3. Maintain a good psychological hygiene
This includes a careful selection of activities during the spare time. For many people watching criminal movies and thrillers is the only way to provide themselves with adrenaline but for you situations full of adrenaline are a part of your daily routine. This means that you need to avoid spare time activities that tend to increase the level of tension. Laughter is one of the best cures so watching comedies and having fun with friends is essential for your overloaded brain. In case that the communication with so many people at work makes you tired, try to find time and space for the much-needed solitude. It is well-known that meditation is more effective than sleeping when it comes to recovering the mind from the stress. Not many people harness this relaxation technique but it is worth trying since your health is in the line.
Playing with your pet, watching the fire in the fireplace, reading a relaxing book are all highly beneficial activities for physicians. Getting a massage isn’t just a treatment when you suffer from back pain. There is scientific evidence that it stimulates the production of the hormone oxytocin which has a very positive effect on human’s body and mind.
You can also listen to CDs which are specially created to enhance a serene state of mind.
4. If you are at a crossroad in your career, find an experienced guide
Nowadays the career opportunities are abundant. Sometimes a person feels as though he is in a labyrinth and doesn’t know which way to go.
Medical specialists can choose between emigration, working in the native country or establishing a private practice. Weighing the pros and cons of all the options and making a huge step in the professional development causes stress in doctors. The solution is to look for consultancies like Forum der Medizin which can help them take the most suitable direction and assist with the necessary procedures connected with the process of moving from one country to another if this is what they want. These companies also help medical students gain education abroad. Some of the consultancies offer opportunities for getting a scholarship. It would be good for medical students to seek support from mentors and consultants even before applying for a university so that they can be sure that they will make the best possible choice.
5. Release the tension by expressing it with words
It is important to have someone in your circle of friends whom you can trust and feel free to share with them what bothers you. You can rely on a colleague, relative, therapist or a life coach to help you go through a life crisis. Maybe you have heard the saying: “A shared problem is a half-solved problem.” If you feel very tense and you have no one to talk to on a particular day, you can write down in a diary so that the sadness, pain, anger, etc. will diminish in intensity. During the process of writing, you might come up with a possible solution to the problem.
6. Sense of humour
It saves most of the doctors from emotional exhaustion. Black humour is typical of medical specialists and for sure there is a logical explanation for this. It is a way for them to transform the traumatic experiences into something they can see from a different angle.
Not every doctor has a well-developed sense of humour before choosing this profession but fortunately this isn’t a trait you are born with - it is a skill that can be learnt.
7. „Professional emotional detachment”
This is a skill all physicians learn in order to decrease the intensity of the pain and emotions they experience from witnessing things that are hard to accept. Doctors “distance” themselves from the situation. It is important not to go to the opposite extreme – total lack of empathy towards patients. Having a kind attitude and expressing compassion is an integral part of doctors’ profession and contributes to the fast recovery of patients.
It is a matter of doctors making a conscious effort to master the skill to “approach” and “distance” themselves emotionally according to the situation, the need of empathy a particular patient feels and the state of the physician on this particular day (whether they still have energy or tiredness has taken over).
When tiredness has taken over, medical specialists should keep their kind and professional attitude towards their patients and at the same time apply the professional emotional detachment approach.
8. Taking regular breaks
This is requirement for maintaining high efficiency of employees. It is better to do medical checkups and procedures in a good condition of the mind rather than in a state of exhaustion since an exhausted person is much more likely to make mistakes.
During the break you can go to the hospital balcony, take a few deep breaths, talk with your colleagues on topics different from problems at work, or even deal with a work activity which doesn’t require a high level of concentration.
If you have an opportunity for taking a nap during the day, set an alarm to wake you up after 15-20 minutes because when a person naps for more than 20 minutes, they wake up feeling dizzy and sleepy.
Author: Mariya Dim
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Your career development as a medical specialist abroad depends on your labour rights awareness
- Category: Career Development for Physicians
- Published on: Monday, 20 January 2014
The professional growth of specialists in different fields is determined by several factors: their good educational background, finding the most suitable workplace and position according to their qualifications and personal qualities and last but not least - their labour rights awareness so that they can defend themselves in case of a labour rights violation.
When doctors move abroad, the third factor becomes particularly important since the work rules for the medical jobs are different from the ones in doctors’ native country. Medical specialists should be well informed regarding their labour rights when they start working in a German hospital and when they leave their job.
The hierarchical level of the position of newly hired foreign doctors in Germany has to correspond to their qualifications and skills. Foreign medical trainees who are employed by a hospital in Germany have to be provided with the necessary training.
When doctors leave their job, they receive a certificate of their qualifications which contains information about their professional skills and all the procedures they have conducted in their job.
Employers are also required to provide a worker who is leaving the job with a document giving information about their personal characteristics. It is an assessment of employee’s abilities to work in a team, their attitude toward their job and the patients, etc. The text is encoded and workers often cannot be sure whether their assessment is positive or negative. Different variations of the text mean different things and correspond to a certain mark according to a five point marking system.
Since the opportunity to find a new job in the desired hospital depends to a great extent on the personal characteristics document received from former employers, it is very important for doctors to seek the services of a consultancy like Forum der Medizin, specialized in providing assistance to doctors and students in Medicine.
Consultants are competent in decoding assessments and doctors can rely on them to learn what mark they have been given. In case they disagree with the mark, workers have the right to put in a claim to the Court for changing their personal characteristics assessment. This should be done within 2 weeks of receiving their assessment from the former employer.
Practice shows that in 100% of the cases, characteristics are changed in workers’ favour. It is considered that the most valuable thing for a person is their ability to do their job and putting obstacles in their professional development is avoided whenever possible.
That is why being aware of your labour rights is of great significance. Seeking the services of a consultancy will help you steer away from career traps and enhance your chance to make the most out of your job experience abroad.
Author: Mariya Dim
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Multilingual Therapists Are Highly Valued and Sought After in Germany
Multilingual Therapists Are Highly Valued and Sought After in Germany
- Category: Career Development for Physicians
- Published on: Thursday, 16 January 2014
More and more people have adopted the mindset “My country is the world”. In search of a job vacancy or a different lifestyle they decide to move abroad. Some emigrants want to start afresh while others want to continue in the same direction but earn much more money.
The immigration statistics in countries like Germany is indicative of this new reality. The population is a multicultural blend. Of 10.8 million people living in Baden-Württemberg, nearly three million are immigrants - about 27 percent.
The implications of this trend are numerous. The immigrants strive to adapt and integrate into the new environment but the connection goes both ways - immigrants change the environment. The accepting country of this huge wave of newcomers encounters issues it has never faced before. A specific one is treating patients who don’t know well the official language of the country. The demand for foreign doctors in Germany is on the rise.
A good example is the need to find bilingual or multilingual psychotherapists who can provide effective consultations to the immigrants seeking therapy. According to the German Federal Chamber of Psychotherapists, one in five immigrants do not speak German well enough to be able to complete a psychotherapeutic treatment successfully.
In Germany some employers have found a partial solution to the problem by hiring interpreters but the therapy process requires such a level of intimacy which cannot be achieved when there is a third person in the room. This means that multilingual specialists are highly valued. The medical recruitment has caught up with the trend and language skills are a major determinant factor for hiring a medical specialist.
Foreign physicians and psychotherapists who see the great opportunity in this situation to be useful to the people needing their help and to develop professionally can rely on consultancies like Forum der Medizin to find the best possible workplace matching their skills and values. Moving abroad can be a smooth and relatively easy transition when you can draw upon the knowledge and experience of competent consultants.
Author: Mariya Dim
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A New Trend: Doctors Seeking Coaching Services
- Category: Career Development for Physicians
- Published on: Tuesday, 14 January 2014
Physicians’ profession offers a lot of benefits but it is also one of the most stressful jobs. Such a career path is usually chosen by highly responsible, hard-working and courageous people. The values and goals of physicians may vary but the desire to help other people is one of the most common drivers for seeking development in this professional field. Many medical specialists, however, find it difficult to search for help when they feel overstressed, exhausted, lost or insecure about the next step in their career.
When you are used to perceiving yourself as the person in charge, it is hard to accept that from time to time you might be the one needing support. Things have changed recently. The number of specialists seeking consultation from competent medical recruitment agencies is rising. It is one of the newest career trends in the medical field.
Physicians who truly believe in the healthy lifestyle know that prevention is better than cure. Such medical specialists prefer to take measures when they feel the tension building in themselves and sense that they have started running out of resources to cope with the situation on their own. It is invaluable to be able to talk with someone who is much more experienced in this field or someone who knows a lot about career changes and has helped many others go through a transition smoothly.
Dealing with diseases, impatient patients, bad relationships with colleagues, feeling stuck in a rut, dissatisfaction with the salary or the work atmosphere…the list with all the possible sources of frustration is a long one.
Sometimes a physician needs to learn some new skills and behavior patterns like being more assertive and confident at the workplace and in other cases a change of the workplace is needed or even choosing another career path. Nowadays doctors can find a well-paid permanent or temporary medical job in Germany or any other country in the EU.
Spending money on professional advice will pay off later in the form of becoming a better specialist, finding a new medical job, earning more money and feeling satisfied and healthy since the level of job satisfaction has a lot to do with the level of happiness and the health status of a person.
It is advisable to search for consultancies like Forum der Medizin which have specialized in the medical field. These consultants are experienced in helping physicians clarify what is best for them taking into consideration their core values, strengths and personal drivers in order to make the most appropriate career change.
Author: Mariya Dim
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How the new labor market conditions affect the corporate culture of hospitals
How the new labor market conditions affect the corporate culture of hospitals
- Category: Career Development for Physicians
- Published on: Friday, 10 January 2014
Hospitals are facing a huge shortage of employees and this holds true not only for developing countries but also for countries with a relatively stable economy like Germany. One of the consequences is the growing number of foreign doctors in Germany who aim at a better professional development abroad.
There are many reasons for the arising of the problem with the deficiency of medical doctors. The growing life expectancy of the world population and the declining birth rates cause the steady increase of the percentage of people in pension age.
In addition, the globalization of the labour market and the increasing opportunities for a career abroad have created a wide variety of jobs in the medical field. They can afford to reject some options while searching for the best job offer. Hospitals have caught up with this trend and have started creating a more employee-oriented corporate culture in order to retain their employees and to be able to attract newcomers.
Payment is just one of the factors determining the retention power of hospitals. Employers are more than ever eager to offer structured training programs, supportive mentorship and feedback discussions on a regular basis since they know that highly-qualified specialists want to develop professionally.
Another significant trend is the increased focus of physicians on achieving a better work-life balance. Hospitals try to respond to that need of their employees in order to boost the doctors recruitment process by offering flexible working time models, in-house day care, Nanny Agencies, clinic own holiday camps for the care of primary school students during the 13 weeks of vacation a year.
Work-related stress among doctors is also an issue targeted by hospitals. Employers have adopted a more empathic leadership style and have launched corporate health management programs.
Doctors detest clumsy bureaucratic procedures which deprive them of valuable time that can be spent on treating patients or taking a much needed rest during the working day. For this reason hospitals are striving to simplify the procedures and many of them have implemented efficient hospital information systems and the electronic medical record. Another solution is hiring employees who can reduce the bureaucratic burden of doctors so that medical specialists can delegate to other people the tasks which are not directly related to the treatment of patients.
Physicians want to take into consideration all these factors determining their job satisfaction in the long term. This can turn out to be overwhelming. For this reason, more and more doctors rely on the support of consultancies like Forum der Medizin to make the best possible choice of an employer. This trend is gaining popularity because a team of competent consultants specialized in the career development of physicians can help doctors save time and hassle.
Author: Mariya Dim
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Working on Honorarium Abroad Is a Chance for Doctors to Earn a lot without Emigrating
Why Doctors Seeking a Career Abroad Should Rely on the Services of a Consultancy Instead of Job Recruitment Agencies?
- Category: Career Development for Physicians
- Published on: Friday, 27 December 2013
It is true for all professions, including doctors’ profession, that specialists achieve much better results in their work and fulfill their potential when they feel satisfied with their working conditions. The globalization and fluidity of the labour market allows for more and more doctors to seek medical jobs abroad.
In some countries it is a common practice for medical specialists to rely on the services of a medical recruitment agency to help them find a job. In other countries like Germany, for example, doctors search for a consultancy to assist them in achieving their career goals abroad. There is a definite reason for this. Doctors in Germany are well aware of the clear distinction between consultancy services and the services offered by a job recruitment agency.
Job recruitment agencies see their business purely as striking a deal between employers and employees. Their profit comes from the payment they get from employers. This makes them financially dependent on employers and therefore it puts an obstacle in front of their ability to keep neutrality. Agencies for doctor recruitment give priority to employers’ interests and doctors may not receive objective information about the working conditions in hospitals. Starting a job in a new workplace abroad may bring a lot of disappointments and stress for these medical specialists whose expectations are very different from the real situation. In such cases some doctors get fired, leave the job and go back to their native country or simply waste their opportunity for a good professional development.
Job recruitment agencies are an appropriate option for low skilled employees not for university graduates since there are more factors that must be taken into consideration and the workplace integration is much more complex.
When a doctor seeks consultancy services they feel secure that the consultancy takes responsibility for finding the most suitable workplace according to their qualifications, personal qualities and career ambitions.
Consultants in companies like Forum der Medizin are competent specialists who are either doctors or people with an academic career. They have the ability to analyze precisely the professional and personal qualities of their clients and create a career model for each medical specialist. The preparation of such an analysis is the first stage of the consultation services. The next step is to find the perfect match between medical specialists and hospitals. Except the preparation of the application documents consultancy services also include:
1. Recognition of the professional experience of doctors
2. Preparation of the tax declaration documents
3. Preparation of the documents for receiving child benefits
4. Registration of doctors in the State Physician Register of Germany
5. Legal advice on doctors’ rights
6. Legal advice in conflict situations with employer or landlord and in other controversial moments
The services mentioned above are not offered by job recruitment agencies. An even more important advantage of consultancy services is that consultancy companies are responsible for making sure that employers observe their obligations. Trainees have to be provided with the necessary training by hospitals. The hierarchical level of the position of newly hired medical specialists has to correspond to their qualifications and skills. The contract has to include everything that a medical specialist is entitled to: their payment should comply with the wage rate; social benefits, annual leaves and sick leaves should be included. Hospitals should provide foreign medical specialists with an opportunity to go up the hierarchical ladder.
When doctors know that they can rely on the assistance of a consultancy for all these matters, they feel more confident in their decision to work abroad and practice shows that they feel satisfied with their new workplace.
In Germany a guarantee for observing job applicants’ interests is the fact that consultancy companies like Forum der Medizin (the company has offices in Bulgaria) do not get a payment from employers but they are subsidized by the government. This allows for consultancies to be objective regarding the pros and cons of employers when they inform doctors about different hospitals.
The government controls the consultancy services and requires from such companies to have a special license. The institute KFW, whose aim is to support initiatives beneficial for the society, maintains a database with suppliers of consultation services which have been approved by a special commission responsible for assessing the competency and the quality of services offered by such companies. There isn’t such a strict control over the activity of job recruitment agencies.
Doctors who want to develop professionally abroad should search for a company that has a license and the necessary competency to offer consultation services. It is vital for their career growth and job satisfaction.
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- Category: Career Development for Physicians
- Published on: Friday, 27 December 2013
You either feel a sense of belonging to the medical profession or not. The same applies to teaching. However, this doesn’t mean that the people who choose these professions should be put in front of the dilemma – you either do what you like and put up with the low payment or choose some other job that is highly paid but your heart is not in it.
Physicians and teachers need to feel social recognition for the important role they are performing. They also need to have a living standard that allows them to “recharge their batteries”, feel secure and be able to provide a good future for their children. If these needs of theirs are satisfied, they will be much more effective at work.
In many countries the educational system and the health care system don’t function well and specialists work under such conditions that put their will to the test.
Fortunately, there is a very good opportunity for doctors to earn great financial benefits without having to emigrate.
In Germany clinics have started a practice of offering foreign physicians jobs in the medical field for short periods of time. In this way they solve the problem with the shortage of qualified professionals. Most frequently this practice is applied in the cases when a German doctor has to be substituted during their annual leave or when they are on sick leave.
There are different schemes of work on honorarium – one weekend, one week, 2-3 weeks or even a month. Foreign doctors can even choose when to take such engagements abroad so that they can combine it with their main job in the country of origin.
From a financial point of view, this type of employment is highly beneficial – the hourly payment is 180 euros on average. German clinics seek both assistant doctors and specialist doctors for work on honorarium which means that the stage of professional development is not an obstacle for taking advantage of this opportunity.
The conditions which foreign doctors have to fulfill are two: they need to have an approbation and to be able to speak German at the necessary level.
Consultancies like Forum der Medizin, specialized in the career enhancement of physicians can help doctors find great opportunities for work on honorarium. What might seem in the beginning as a distant idea or a challenge that is too big to deal with, is turned by consultants into a well prepared plan for actions. Doctors can attain a high standard of living and achieve professional growth without being away from their families and friends for too long.
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Emigration: Yes or No?
- Category: Career Development for Physicians
- Published on: Friday, 20 December 2013
Doctors are among those specialists who have the most prerequisites and motives to move abroad for career enhancement purposes.
The most obvious motive is searching for job vacancy in a workplace that offers a better remuneration package. Health care is going through a really rough period worldwide but different countries have been affected to a different extent. The image of physicians’ profession and the social recognition doctors receive also vary from country to country.
Migration of medical specialists is happening mostly from developing countries towards developed countries but research shows that a large percent of doctors coming from Western Europe seek career development abroad too. According to a report published in the website http://www.docstoc.com, Switzerland is quite attractive for German and Austrian doctors.
In addition to better working conditions, another popular reason for physicians’ decision to move abroad is their desire to change their lifestyle and living environment. For instance, doctors from the Scandinavian countries choose to move to Italy or Spain because they like the climate there, the culture and the laid-back lifestyle in Southern EU member states.
Globalization has changed the mindset of European citizens. They enjoy the sense of freedom and the variety of options that lie in front of them and want to take advantage of the opportunity to enrich their professional and personal experience abroad.
The European Commission created new directives in order to facilitate the mobility of human resources within the EU by regulating the recognition of diplomas gained in member states of the EU. Medical specialists reap the most benefits since diplomas issued by medical universities on the territory of the EU fall into the category of “automatic recognition”.
It is an interesting fact that despite all the new opportunities for mobility, doctors from Italy rarely decide to seek a medical officer job abroad even though there is a surplus of physicians in the country. It is supposed that the reason for this is related to the cultural characteristics of the nation and their preference to avoid the efforts necessary for adapting to a new environment.
Actually, the fear of the unknown, the language barrier and the lack of information about how to create a career model abroad are the motives of some doctors to give up their dream of working in a foreign country.
The problems mentioned above can be solved by consultancies like Forum der Medizin specialized in providing support to medical specialists to achieve the optimal career development. Such licensed medical recruitment consultancies deal with the whole process of preparing the documents necessary for moving abroad, the negotiations with foreign employers regarding the working conditions, solving any legal issues that might arise and helping doctors integrate faster in the new environment.
Some medical specialists want to work abroad only temporarily and then go back to their native country. This is a very good variant because they can use the money earned in the foreign country to open a private practice after coming back from abroad or they can use their experience as a springboard for their career in hospitals in the native country. Besides, they will feel happy that they can apply the best medical practices learnt abroad and contribute to the improvement of health care services in their own country.
There is another option which is less popular but it is expected to turn into a trend in the future since the labour market in the EU is becoming more and more flexible. Doctors from foreign countries will be hired for a very short period of time (several days or weeks) in order to substitute a doctor in a hospital or to provide help in extremely busy periods. Germany has already adopted such a practice. This is a very good opportunity for medical specialists to earn a lot of money without having to emigrate.
The tendency of the labour market is to seek doctors who know foreign languages, are familiar with foreign health care systems and are able to work internationally.
This means that while studying Medicine at their university, students should take advantage of the opportunities to learn foreign languages and to take part in students’ programs like Erasmus in order to get a training abroad.
The answer to the question “Emigration: Yes or No” depends on the individual preferences of specialists, their character and priorities. The most important thing for doctors is to be aware of the opportunities they have while searching for the most suitable workplace.
When a person feels that the medical profession is their vocation and develops their professional and personal skills, getting a consultation from experts about career models abroad and in the native country, then they have really good chances of achieving a high level of job satisfaction.
Read more:
Live in the moment: now is the time to apply for a medical job in Germany!
How to finance your education in a foreign country
The Syrian doctor who won the support of companies and institutions and realized his dream to work in Germany
- Category: Career Development for Physicians
- Published on: Monday, 07 October 2013
It is said that miracles happen in life. Reality shows that people with extraordinary luck are those people who are well prepared, highly motivated and able to be patient. They go in the desired direction, make the necessary efforts, believe in themselves and win people’s trust thanks to their personal qualities. Lucky people are usually those who see opportunities and doors which remain unnoticed by others.
The real story of a Syrian doctor is a confirmation of this truth. He had moved from Syria to Bulgaria with his family but his dream was to work in Germany. The doctor decided to seek the help of the consultancy Forum der Medizin to find a good job in the country he had chosen.