One thing that made me want to become a doctor is the interchangeability across the world. Illness makes us equal in humanity. Generally medicine is a global phenomenon that should change little according to location. Unfortunately the circumstances under which medical staff is working are very different. This reflects more or less in education and specialist training.
First of all, the differences between the developing and developed world are huge of course, which delivers a somewhat paradoxal result sometimes. When I went to Tanzania to cooperate with students from Dar-Es-Salam for example, I was enormously surprised, they knew everything about MRI-diagnostics. Of course, an MRI is a great imaging technique. But they were so impressed, they knew much more details than me. Anyway, at that time, no MRI machine existed in Tanzania and I doubt they do have one now. It might have been handier for them to learn more practical diagnostics (they did have a malaria chart resembling colors to compare to a blood drop, which ranged from dark red to white).
Of course their idea might always have been the same as mine. To travel to the other side of the world and practice there. Even though they might have had different expectations. Anyway getting your diploma recognized in a different country is not always easy. Everyone knows about the intended burden of USMLE for example. But there can even be difficulties the other way around. Do not expect to be a great doctor, just because you come from a well educated western country. What do you know about Malaria or how do you cut out a worm from a men’s feet? How do you treat people when there is no infrastructure and you are all by yourself?
Last but not least even if you can deal with all the problems, the most important burden in my opinion is the language barrier. I have been working with colleagues who did not understand me, neither the patients and it leads to dangerous situations. But if you are a multilingual or spend every hour playing duolingo, why not.
I feel like a doctor should be able to learn what he wants to learn and travel to where he wants to travel. Globalization should hit the health sector too and it will for sure. So I want to collect information on specialist training and diploma recognization per country here. If you have any experience with switching countries, please write and tell me.
Here are the details per country…
The Netherlands
Italy
Austria
France
Spain
United Kingdom
Colombia
Brazil
DocSpiration 