Credential validation delays force foreign doctors to lose medical skills
A Swedish study finds that migrant physicians waiting months or years to validate degrees abroad experience skill degradation that threatens patient safety and healthcare capacity. Healthcare systems and policymakers face a hidden cost: lengthy credential review processes may inadvertently reduce the competence of the very professionals they're vetting.
Originaltitel: Long time in the waiting room: migrant physicians in Sweden and their struggles to mobilise cultural capital
<p>The mobilisation of assets from one national field to another is a topic that has attracted significant sociological attention. In this paper, we investigate migrant physicians who obtained their medical degrees outside the EU/EEA and trace the process of validating their degrees in Sweden. The study is inscribed in Bourdieu’s sociological tradition and is based on a questionnaire and interviews with physicians. Analysing the mobilisation of cultural capital across national borders, we emphasise the importance of distinguishing its different states in the context of migration. Based on our case, we argue that the time physicians spend in the ‘waiting room’ challenges their ability to maintain and perform their medical craft. We show that the time it takes to institutionalise assets and accumulate capital in another national context can lead to the risk of losing its embodied state.</p>