IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v61y2005i8p1750-1760.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The flight of physicians from West Africa: Views of African physicians and implications for policy

Author

Listed:
  • Hagopian, Amy
  • Ofosu, Anthony
  • Fatusi, Adesegun
  • Biritwum, Richard
  • Essel, Ama
  • Gary Hart, L.
  • Watts, Carolyn

Abstract

West African-trained physicians have been migrating from the sub-continent to rich countries, primarily the US and the UK, since medical education began in Nigeria and Ghana in the 1960s. In 2003, we visited six medical schools in West Africa to investigate the magnitude, causes and consequences of the migration. We conducted interviews and focus groups with faculty, administrators (deans and provosts), students and post-graduate residents in six medical schools in Ghana and Nigeria. In addition to the migration push and pull factors documented in previous literature, we learned that there is now a well-developed culture of medical migration. This culture is firmly rooted, and does not simply fail to discourage medical migration but actually encourages it. Medical school faculty are role models for the benefits of migration (and subsequent return), and they are proud of their students who successfully emigrate.

Suggested Citation

  • Hagopian, Amy & Ofosu, Anthony & Fatusi, Adesegun & Biritwum, Richard & Essel, Ama & Gary Hart, L. & Watts, Carolyn, 2005. "The flight of physicians from West Africa: Views of African physicians and implications for policy," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 61(8), pages 1750-1760, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:8:p:1750-1760
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277-9536(05)00122-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stekelenburg, Jelle & Kyanamina, Sindele Simasiku & Wolffers, Ivan, 2003. "Poor performance of community health workers in Kalabo District, Zambia," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(2), pages 109-118, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Masselink, Leah E. & Lee, Shoou-Yih Daniel, 2010. "Nurses, Inc.: Expansion and commercialization of nursing education in the Philippines," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 166-172, July.
    2. Adebusola Adebayo & Oluwaseun Oladapo Akinyemi, 2022. "“What Are You Really Doing in This Country?”: Emigration Intentions of Nigerian Doctors and Their Policy Implications for Human Resource for Health Management," Journal of International Migration and Integration, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 1377-1396, September.
    3. Asongu Simplice, 2015. "Determinants of health professionals’ migration in Africa: a WHO based assessment," International Journal of Social Economics, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 42(7), pages 666-686, July.
    4. Akhenaten Benjamin Siankam Tankwanchi & Sten H Vermund & Douglas D Perkins, 2015. "Monitoring Sub-Saharan African Physician Migration and Recruitment Post-Adoption of the WHO Code of Practice: Temporal and Geographic Patterns in the United States," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(4), pages 1-18, April.
    5. Hussey, Peter S., 2007. "International migration patterns of physicians to the United States: A cross-national panel analysis," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 84(2-3), pages 298-307, December.
    6. Huish, Robert, 2009. "How Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine challenges the ethics of physician migration," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 69(3), pages 301-304, August.
    7. Connell, John & Zurn, Pascal & Stilwell, Barbara & Awases, Magda & Braichet, Jean-Marc, 2007. "Sub-Saharan Africa: Beyond the health worker migration crisis?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(9), pages 1876-1891, May.
    8. Blacklock, C. & Ward, A.M. & Heneghan, C. & Thompson, M., 2014. "Exploring the migration decisions of health workers and trainees from Africa: A meta-ethnographic synthesis," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 99-106.
    9. Mawusse K.N. Okey, 2016. "Corruption And Emigration Of Physicians From Africa," Journal of Economic Development, Chung-Ang Unviersity, Department of Economics, vol. 41(2), pages 27-52, June.
    10. Michel Grignon & Yaw Owusu & Arthur Sweetman, 2013. "The international migration of health professionals," Chapters, in: Amelie F. Constant & Klaus F. Zimmermann (ed.), International Handbook on the Economics of Migration, chapter 4, pages 75-97, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Connell, John, 2014. "The two cultures of health worker migration: A Pacific perspective," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 73-81.
    12. Akl, Elie A. & Maroun, Nancy & Major, Stella & Afif, Claude & Chahoud, Bechara & Choucair, Jacques & Sakr, Mazen & Schünemann, Holger J., 2007. "Why are you draining your brain? Factors underlying decisions of graduating Lebanese medical students to migrate," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(6), pages 1278-1284, March.
    13. Rachel Jenkins & Robert Kydd & Paul Mullen & Kenneth Thomson & James Sculley & Susan Kuper & Joanna Carroll & Oye Gureje & Simon Hatcher & Sharon Brownie & Christopher Carroll & Sheila Hollins & Mai L, 2010. "International Migration of Doctors, and Its Impact on Availability of Psychiatrists in Low and Middle Income Countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(2), pages 1-9, February.
    14. Okeke, Edward N., 2013. "Brain drain: Do economic conditions “push” doctors out of developing countries?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 169-178.
    15. Kıbrıs, Arzu & Metternich, Nils, 2016. "The flight of white-collars: Civil conflict, availability of medical service providers and public health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 93-103.
    16. Jaffré, Yannick & Suh, Siri, 2016. "Where the lay and the technical meet: Using an anthropology of interfaces to explain persistent reproductive health disparities in West Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 175-183.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stekelenburg, Jelle & Jager, Bastiaan E. & Kolk, Pascal R. & Westen, Esther H. M. N. & Kwaak, Anke van der & Wolffers, Ivan N., 2005. "Health care seeking behaviour and utilisation of traditional healers in Kalabo, Zambia," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(1), pages 67-81, January.
    2. Jenny H Ledikwe & Mable Kejelepula & Kabelo Maupo & Siwulani Sebetso & Mothwana Thekiso & Monica Smith & Bagele Mbayi & Nankie Houghton & Kabo Thankane & Gabrielle O’Malley & Bazghina-werq Semo, 2013. "Evaluation of a Well-Established Task-Shifting Initiative: The Lay Counselor Cadre in Botswana," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-10, April.
    3. Thomas Porter & Jane Chuma & Catherine Molyneux, 2009. "Barriers to managing chronic illness among urban households in coastal Kenya," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 271-290.
    4. Edward, Anbrasi & Branchini, Casey & Aitken, Iain & Roach, Melissa & Osei-Bonsu, Kojo & Arwal, Said Habib, 2015. "Toward universal coverage in Afghanistan: A multi-stakeholder assessment of capacity investments in the community health worker system," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 173-183.
    5. Alam, Khurshid & Tasneem, Sakiba & Oliveras, Elizabeth, 2012. "Performance of female volunteer community health workers in Dhaka urban slums," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(3), pages 511-515.
    6. Standing, H. & Chowdhury, A. Mushtaque R., 2008. "Producing effective knowledge agents in a pluralistic environment: What future for community health workers?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(10), pages 2096-2107, May.
    7. Druetz, Thomas & Kadio, Kadidiatou & Haddad, Slim & Kouanda, Seni & Ridde, Valéry, 2015. "Do community health workers perceive mechanisms associated with the success of community case management of malaria? A qualitative study from Burkina Faso," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 232-240.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:61:y:2005:i:8:p:1750-1760. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.