Why would doctors from Debrecen go abroad? Results of a questionnaire

Abstract

Numerous beliefs have arisen in relation to the emigration of doctors. First of all, in most cases emigration has been attributed to, almost exclusively, low salaries. There are a number of non-financial issues that could possibly be more easily addressed. In order to get closer to these issues, we sent out a 37-item questionnaire to doctors, who originally graduated from the University of Debrecen. Altogether 82 of them sent back the questionnaire. The mean age at the time of emigration was 32 years. The most popular destination was the United States, however, many colleagues left for the US to do research, as well as clinical practice. Among the European countries, the most popular ones were Sweden, Germany, United Kingdom, Switzerland and Norway. The five most popular clinical specialties were general practice, internal medicine, anesthesiology/intensive care, laboratory/pathology and surgery. With respect to the planned duration of working abroad, at the time of emigration one-fourth of our colleagues planned very short (<2 years) stay. When we asked them now, 38% plans much longer, even indefinite stay. The most common reasons of emigration were also assessed. The most common one was the lack of career track, followed by low salary, quality of life, family issues and adventurousness. Interestingly, burnout and "gratuities" were at the end of the list. A mean 1.3 million HUF per month would make our colleagues satisfied but they think that a mean 486.000 HUF would be realistic and would keep most doctors within the country. As far as university education is concerned, our colleagues agreed that the basic medical knowledge of Hungarian doctors is excellent, but their practical skills are much worse. Although returning to Hungary would be unrealistic by most colleagues, low salaries are definitely not the most important or exclusive reason for leaving the country. These issues are rather complex, there are numerous non-financial issues, which could be addressed much easier by expressing a positive attitude. Orv Hetil. 2017; 158(37): 1458-1468.