How the country of education affects migrant doctors’ acceptance among their patients

Countries such as the UK are becoming increasingly dependent on foreign-schooled doctors for supplying medical services. This leads to well-known patient—doctor discordance issues, such as lower patient trust in foreign doctors. The role of doctor education in this issue is not well understood, leading us to pose the question: To which extent does the place where a doctor was educated, as opposed to the place where they were born, predict patients' attitudes and behavioural intentions towards that doctor? In addition, we investigate if patients’ intentions towards a foreign doctor can be influenced by providing information about three well-known social attributes that may be affected by doctor education, i.e., competence, sociability, and morality.

Five vignette studies measured the response of majority group members (White, UK or NL-born participants), assuming the role of patients, to migrant doctors who were either educated abroad or in the country of destination (total N = 1181).

A doctor's birthplace and a doctor's place of education both impacted patients' acceptance of that doctor. Training in the UK, as opposed to a foreign country, was associated with higher levels of competence. However, when presented with negative information about the doctor's competence, sociability, and especially morality, patients' acceptance of that doctor plummeted.

Providing foreign doctors with training in their country of destination may improve those doctors' acceptance amongst patients. Preventing negative word of mouth about a doctor's moral conduct, more so than about their sociability or competence, should furthermore be an important educational goal.