ABSTRACT

Some of the changes in medical emigration since the early analysis of the Willink Committee in 1957, which concentrated mainly on the colonial medical service and missionary work, have been referred to in Chapter 1. Easy movement around the world has progressively declined since the 1960s for various reasons. The situation in 1978 was reviewed by Glaser in a report for the United Nations Organization (Glaser 1978) in which he considered ‘the range of personal motives, economic incentives and social influences that govern the decisions of the individual to emigrate-to be used as a basis for policy making’. Doctors do still go abroad, and we made a detailed study of this among the 1974 qualifiers, to whom we sent a specifically worded questionnaire for the purpose in 1987 (Parkhouse and Parkhouse 1990). We have less detailed information about 1977, 1980 and 1983 qualifiers.