Attracting foreign doctors to Finnish primary health care
Soini, Lauri (2023)
2023
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202305027182
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202305027182
Tiivistelmä
Finnish health care has undergone big changes and renewals during the last decades and the last few years. Throughout this time especially the public primary health care has suffered from a lack of medical doctors, and this shortage has gradually gotten worse.
The main aim of the present thesis is to examine foreign doctors’ initial reasons for work-based immigration to Finland. Their experiences, both positive and negative, during practicing their profession in the country are also under consideration. Analyzing these factors provides the employers of health care field with information on what about Finland is attractive in the eyes of foreign doctors today, and what should be enhanced to generate more flow of this workforce to Finland in the future.
The data for this study was gathered by a questionnaire sent to doctors of foreign origin, who had working experience in the Finnish primary health care.
The main results of this thesis were that the demographic backgrounds and reasons for foreign doctors to come work in Finland are many, but there are factors that do link individuals and create basis for building better recruiting- and attraction operations. Age and country of origin of doctors was found to follow the overall Finnish statistics about foreigners, but gender-wise male doctors formed a significantly bigger group than female ones. Financial, personal and professional reasons were identified as the biggest drivers for work-based immigration to Finland among doctors, but also many societal aspects were found to be of importance.
The aim of the research is to help Finland become a more attractive work destination for foreign physicians in the future, which would be a partly solution to the problem of scarce resources of doctoral workforce in the Finnish society.
In particular, the employers of the Finnish primary health care system are likely to benefit from the findings of this study and it creates background for future research on mobility of international workforce of health care professionals for the needs of Finnish society.
The main aim of the present thesis is to examine foreign doctors’ initial reasons for work-based immigration to Finland. Their experiences, both positive and negative, during practicing their profession in the country are also under consideration. Analyzing these factors provides the employers of health care field with information on what about Finland is attractive in the eyes of foreign doctors today, and what should be enhanced to generate more flow of this workforce to Finland in the future.
The data for this study was gathered by a questionnaire sent to doctors of foreign origin, who had working experience in the Finnish primary health care.
The main results of this thesis were that the demographic backgrounds and reasons for foreign doctors to come work in Finland are many, but there are factors that do link individuals and create basis for building better recruiting- and attraction operations. Age and country of origin of doctors was found to follow the overall Finnish statistics about foreigners, but gender-wise male doctors formed a significantly bigger group than female ones. Financial, personal and professional reasons were identified as the biggest drivers for work-based immigration to Finland among doctors, but also many societal aspects were found to be of importance.
The aim of the research is to help Finland become a more attractive work destination for foreign physicians in the future, which would be a partly solution to the problem of scarce resources of doctoral workforce in the Finnish society.
In particular, the employers of the Finnish primary health care system are likely to benefit from the findings of this study and it creates background for future research on mobility of international workforce of health care professionals for the needs of Finnish society.