Irish Trainees Continuing to Emigrate.

The Medical Council’s spotlight report on ‘Trainee Career and Retention Intentions’, to be released later in October 2015, will report further findings from its 2014 Trainee National Experience Survey1, to which over 1,600 non consultant hospital doctors (NCHDs) in training posts responded. This latest report will show that close to half of trainees – the cornerstone of hospital care and the future cornerstone of our health services – intend to pursue their careers outside of Ireland. Most worrying is that those in Higher Specialist Training are more likely to leave, resulting in greater loss to the Irish health system in terms of investment of effort and money, and lost expertise. The findings are consistent with a growing body of evidence on the medical workforce crisis facing Ireland. In early 2015, 88% of Irish medical students reported their intentions to leave Ireland on graduation, though close to half said they would return. However, the assumption that most doctors will return was dispelled in our 2015 survey of 307 emigrant Irish trained doctors who had left Ireland between 2008 and 2013.Since leaving, there had been a three-fold rise in those intending to remain abroad permanently and only a quarter intended to return to practice in Ireland.