Applying for work in PRC, etc.?

John Mcreery (JLM@TWICS.COM)
Mon, 14 Aug 1995 07:14:36 +0900

Barbara Campbell writes,

"I was wondering if you any of you could offer your advice on how to apply for
work in the People's Republic of China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Sri
Lanka, India, New Zealand, Singapore or Australia?"

Barbara also says that her fiance, a surgeon, "doesn't think he can stomach what's going on in our hospital system much
longer."

I don't have any immediate answer to her question, but I'll ask around, might
find out something. I'd like to ask though, what kind of situation she is
imagining. Putting aside New Zealand or Australia, where it may be possible to
immigrate and find a job immediately in the mainline medicall system (a call
to an embassy might be the quickest way to check this out, if one of our
down-under colleagues doesn't come through first), in the other countries she
mentions I suspect that a foreign doctor will face two kinds of opportunities.
First, there is work for charitable institutions. Second, there is the
foreign community doctor sort of position, providing medical services to
expats whose lack of language and cultural skills makes dealing with the local
system awkward for them. In neither case should one automatically assume that
the medical system in the host country will be a major improvement on the
hospital system in the U.S. I can't help wondering what it is that Barbara's
fiance can't stomach and where, if it exists, there may be a better system.

Wishing he could be more helpful,

John McCreery