Article ID: CBB001034275

“Worse than Being Married”: The Exodus of British Doctors from the National Health Service to Canada, c. 1955--75 (2010)

unapi

Despite a sizeable literature on the evolution of health insurance in Britain and Canada, there is virtually no research on the transnational migration of physicians between these countries in the immediate postwar period. This article hopes to address this neglected subject. Three interrelated topics will be examined. First, the paper will summarize the debate over physician emigration from the National Health Service (NHS) in postwar Britain. It will demonstrate how British social scientists and politicians began to come to grips with a major demographic exodus of British-trained doctors in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Second, it will analyze the changing health human resource situation in 1960s Canada, which focused, for practical and cultural reasons, on General Medical Council of Britain licensed practitioners. Third, through oral interviews of British-trained physicians who settled in Canada during the 1960s, it will examine the professional and personal reasons why physicians left Britain for Canada. It reveals that, among a myriad of personal issues that motivated a physician to leave the NHS, the inflexibility and hierarchical nature of British medicine loomed very large. The paper will conclude by reflecting on the contemporary significance of this fascinating historical phenomenon.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB001034275/

Similar Citations

Article Schoefert, Anna Kathryn; (2015)
Neither Physicians Nor Surgeons: Whither Neuropathological Skill in Post-war England? (/isis/citation/CBB001552786/)

Book Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds; (2015)
Nye: The Political Life of Aneurin Bevan (/isis/citation/CBB620201368/)

Book Hayward, Rhodri; (2014)
The Transformation of the Psyche in British Primary Care, 1870--1970 (/isis/citation/CBB001422161/)

Book Marks, John; (2008)
The NHS: Beginning, Middle and End? The Autobiography of Dr. John Marks (/isis/citation/CBB000952085/)

Article Freeman, Richard; (2008)
A National Health Service, by Comparison (/isis/citation/CBB000930677/)

Book Ellen Welch; (2018)
The NHS at 70: A Living History (/isis/citation/CBB299066145/)

Article Jennifer Crane; (2018)
Why the History of Public Consultation Matters for Contemporary Health Policy (/isis/citation/CBB432541042/)

Authors & Contributors
Seaton, Andrew
Clark, Peder
Welch, Ellen
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds
Crane, Jennifer
Schoefert, Anna Kathryn
Concepts
Public health
Medicine
Medicine and society
Health care
Physicians; doctors
Medicine and government
Time Periods
20th century
20th century, late
20th century, early
21st century
19th century
Places
Great Britain
England
Wales
Canada
South Asia
Manchester (England)
Institutions
National Health Service (Great Britain)
Rockefeller Foundation
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment