Medical Students’ Working Preferences - A Pilot Study in Romania

Health workforce migration affects healthcare services from all around the world. This present study hypothesized that: Romanian medical students’ preference of a workplace is based not only on factors such as economical, working conditions and professional development, but also on other factors that are more related to personal values. A cross-sectional study was conducted involving 215 medical students from Cluj-Napoca. Students were invited to take part in a career preference questionnaire about: socio-demographic factors, work environment, job characteristics, influence of family and friends and the students’ intention to emigrate. Results show that students would choose a job based on: quality of working conditions, intellectual challenges, job security, the location of job in an urban area, income and a good atmosphere at the workplace. The factors impacting the migration are: quality of working conditions, desire of support from nurses and acceptance of a job even if is far from where the students’ family lives. The results could influence legislation on health and workforce mobility and improve the workforce recruitment, retention and motivation aspects on long-term.

Health Workforce Migration in the Asia Pacific: implications for the achievement of sustainable development goals

The maldistribution of health workers globally and within the Asia Pacific region remains problematic. While globalisation, and the increasing mobility of capital and labour, helps to reduce inequalities between countries, it increases inequality within countries. This study examines health workforce data and densities in the Asia Pacific region through a health workforce migration lens. The main implication relevant to achievement of sustainable development goals is the need for countries to work in a co-ordinated way in this region to increase substantially health financing and the recruitment, development, training and retention of the health workforce in developing countries, especially in least developed countries and small island developing states, most notably the Maldives, Timor- Leste, Kiribati, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu. Abbreviations: OECD – Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development; SDG – Sustainable Development Goals; SIDS – Small Island Development States.