Professional Mobility Experiences of Mobile Medical Professionals
Abstract
Health professionals move for various reasons and for various periods of time, which entails consequences at various levels, ranging from governmental decisions regarding the policy of health mobility to shifts in mobile medical professionals’ attitudes towards sojourning. The present paper looks into the self-perceptions of working and living abroad of mobile medical professionals. An online questionnaire was conducted in order to gain an insight into how mobile medical professionals experience living and working in a foreign environment and which factors make it easier or more difficult. The results suggest a close link exists between the perceived willingness to continue the sojourn and the degree of identification with the new culture, satisfaction with professional functioning and satisfaction with social networks. Even though the majority of the respondents feel well adjusted in their new working environment, they experience their social networks as inadequate, which sometimes provides mobile medical professionals with an impetus to abort their careers abroad.
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Copyright (c) 2012 Donata Lisaitė
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