Brightest brains in drain: Is the intention of immigration increasing among family medicine trainees? A cross-sectional study in Turkey

Sirma Yalaz, Hülya Parildar

Keywords: Migration in Turkey, family medicine trainees, job satisfaction, working conditions, financial problems, violence and safety in healthcare, academic issues

Background:

The “brain drain” (defined as the migration of educated and talented workers to more developed countries in search of better conditions) of the health workforce has been an important issue worldwide. These mobility trends cause societies to lose an unreplaceable part thus creating not only some short-term issues in the healthcare system but also some irrecoverable problems in the distant future. Unsatisfactory working conditions, work overload, insufficiency of training opportunities, and financial problems have been pointed out as major factors leading to the migration of healthcare professionals. Job satisfaction is described as various attitudes related to each other like the job itself, salary, expectations, etc. There has been a negative trend in the respect shown to medical doctors by society in Turkey. Moreover, workplaces have become ‘unsafe’ due to violence in healthcare settings. Given that immigration of Turkish physicians has grown exponentially in the last years. We wonder how and why family medicine trainees sit in these migratory flows of doctors.

Research questions:

Are family medicine trainees in Turkey intending to move abroad?
What are their main reasons to leave?
Is the idea of immigration related with job dissatisfaction?
Which countries they prefer to live, why?

Method:

An online questionnaire will be conducted among the family medicine trainees in Turkey. Minnesota Job Satisfaction Questionnaire will be included in the research. Data will be analyzed by using SPSS and descriptive, logistic regression, and chi-square tests.

Results:

Results will be available by the time of the congress.

Conclusions:

No conclusions yet.

Points for discussion:

What kind of preventive actions can be taken for family medicine trainees to decrease the trend to move abroad?

Are those intentions related with the scores of Minnesota Job Satisfaction Scale?

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