EDITORIAL: Putting foreign doctors to work

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This week, thousands of medical professionals, specialists and GPs from around Finland, will drop in to Helsinki for an annual training event known as Lääkäripäivät, the Finnish Medical Convention.
      If half of those physicians who speak another language than Finnish or Swedish as their mother-tongue take part in on-the-job training and seminars at the week's gathering, there will be more than five hundred of them present.
      The path of those doctors who have studied abroad - particularly outside of the EU and EEA countries - to become professionals in the Finnish health system is a demanding one.
      They are expected to take a three-part certification to qualify for a licence to practice medicine, which tests their theoretical knowledge, their understanding of Finnish public health legislation and statutes, and their ability to interact with the patient.
      The tests are also a rigorous language exam, for they must be completed either in Swedish or in Finnish.
     
Those who have qualified as doctors outside the EU member-states have in recent weeks and months been getting sidelong glances thanks to the actions of one fake medic who has worked as a doctor in Finland for some years.
      The man in question - a Finn - had acquired forged documents from Russia claiming his competence to practice medicine.
      Foreign-born doctors also get their share of frowns and doubting comments in the workplace, particularly from patients.
      If the GP speaks Finnish poorly or with a thick accent, patients' doubts over his or her professional competence are quickly brought to the surface.
      Then again, patients do have a right to be served in their native language in such a way that they feel they are being fully understood, and such that they can understand the instructions that their physician is giving to them.
     
Doctors working in Finland complain that their language training falls short of the ideal, in particular when the doctor has taken the required tests.
      Gaining any further tuition becomes a matter for the doctor himself or herself to arrange, and not everywhere in the country is there the requisite "smart training" in languages for health professionals.
     
At present, there are roughly seven hundred individuals living in Finland who are in possession of a valid medical degree, but who are without work as a doctor.
      Equally, there are a great many - the numbers have not been formally added up - qualified doctors with papers from outside the European Union who are working as assistants in municipal home-care, in other auxiliary positions, or in completely separate non-medical fields, for instance as cleaners.
      The further education of immigrant doctors in Finland would be in the interests of all.
      The shortage of doctors would be eased, and at the same time immigrants would be able to do work that corresponds to their training and qualifications, and they would in so doing bind themselves more securely into Finnish society.
     
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 10.1.2012


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Authorities to investigate hundreds of medical degrees from abroad (16.11.2011)

Links:
  Lääkäripäivät, The Finnish Medical Convention, 2012

Helsingin Sanomat