Doctors beyond Borders: The Transnational Migration of Physicians in the Twentieth Century

by Laurence Monnais (Editor), David Wright (Editor)

The transnational migration of health care practitioners has become a critical issue in global health policy and ethics. Doctors beyond Borders provides an essential historical perspective on this international issue, showing how foreign-trained doctors have challenged – and transformed – health policy and medical practice in countries around the world.

Drawing on a wide variety of sources, from immigration records and medical directories to oral histories, the contributors study topics ranging from the influence of South Asian doctors on geriatric medicine in the United Kingdom to the Swedish reaction to the arrival of Jewish physicians fleeing Nazi Germany and the impact of the Vietnam War on the migration of doctors to Canada. Combining social history, the history of health and medicine, and immigration history, Doctors beyond Borders is an impressive selection of essays on a topic that continues to have global relevance.

Review
"Doctors beyond Borders offers both empirical richness and historiographical engagement, throwing new light on the tension between medicine's claims to universal knowledge and the reality of practice within national professional cultures."

(Michael Worboys, Emeritus Professor, Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester)

About the Author
Laurence Monnais is a professor and the Canada Research Chair in Health Care Pluralism in the Department of History at Université de Montréal.

David Wright is Professor of History and Canada Research Chair in the History of Health Policy, McGill University