To which countries do European psychiatric trainees want to move to and why?

Abstract

A high number of psychiatric trainees considered moving to another country, and their motivation largely reflects the substantial salary differences. These findings suggest tackling financial conditions and academic opportunities.

Migration of Junior Doctors: The Case of Psychiatric Trainees in Portugal

“…Compared to Turkey, trainees in Portugal had higher rates of both short-term mobility (30.6% vs 13.1%) and long-term migration experiences (8.3% vs 4.7%). 15 In comparison to the overall European results from this study, 13 trainees in Portugal with previous short-mobility experiences were generally satisfied with their experiences abroad and had a positive attitude towards future migration. Equally, the same rates of trainees in Portugal (as in Europe overall) had 'ever' considered leaving the country and were considering leaving the country 'now'.…”

“…This cross-sectional survey was conducted as part of the EFPT Brain Drain study. 13 Data from individual psychiatric trainees were collected through an anonymous semi-structured self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of 61 questions, covering demographics, experiences of short-term mobility (defined as lasting between three months and one year), experiences of long-term migration (defined as lasting more than one year) and attitudes towards migration.…”

“…It should be noted that although a HIC, Portugal is among the European countries where psychiatric trainees are paid the worst, after the Eastern European countries. 13 This may explain why the majority of the psychiatric trainees were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with their income. Financial reasons were also the top reason to leave the country in Romania and Turkey.…”

“…The response rate of more than half is another of its strengths, as well as the characteristics of the sample (with the majority being female) which is in line with the population of psychiatric trainees in Portugal 14 and in Europe. 13 Currently, at least 60% of new graduates and 30% of the medical workforce are women, 9 and there is an increasing number of female psychiatrists in various countries. 17,18 However, some limitations should be noted.…”

Barriers and facilitators to conducting research by early career psychiatrists: a literature review

“…One way to foster early research involvement is to gain the interest of medical students prior to them graduating from In Europe, trainee-led organisations, such as the European Federation of Psychiatric Trainees (EFPT) (Schulze, Treichel, 2002) and the European Psychiatric Association -Early Career Psychiatrists Committee (EPA -ECPC) (Hanon et al, 2015), have been successful in promoting research among junior psychiatrists in recent years, and formed dedicated task forces (Kuzman et al, 2009). Several European-wide early-career psychiatrist-driven studies have been carried out completely independently leading to high-quality publications, where all the co-authors were junior researchers (Koelkebeck et al, 2015, Kuzman et al, 2017, Jovanovic et al, 2016, Pinto da Costa et al, 2017.…”