Migration and Medicine: Bridging the Gap between Patients and Migrant Doctors

This project aims to bridge the gap between patients and migrant doctors. Increasingly more doctors are migrating to Turkey (Erdogan 2015), with more than 4000 migrant doctors currently working in general practices, in private clinics, and private or city hospitals (Danyildiz 2021).

While there is increasingly more literature on refugees’ access to healthcare, the experiences of migrant doctors are largely ignored, especially in the context of Turkey. How patients view migrant doctors, and how doctors’ experiences at medical institutions and how the doctor-patient relationships are moulded through doctors’ migrant status have been under-researched, a gap that this project will aim to fill. Through the analysis of an online survey and semi-structured in-depth interviews, this project will unpack the discourses surrounding the intersubjective relations between migrant doctors and their (potential) patients. This project will benefit scholars of migration and health; as well as migrant doctors, their colleagues and (potential) patients.

This research will create impact for both academic and non-academic audiences. Within academic circles, it will benefit scholars across two fields, sociology of migration and sociology of health and illness. Within non-academic circles, the research is expected to create impact for migrant doctors and their patients, as well as non-migrant doctors who work alongside their migrant colleagues.