‘Doctors for Export’: Medical Migration from Ireland c.1860 to 1960(99 Clio Medica)

This is the first full-length study of doctor migration from Ireland covering roughly a century of the export of Irish medical graduates to other parts of the world. From 1860 around forty percent of Ireland’s medical graduates left to pursue careers elsewhere. The book examines the factors which drove emigration, the shifting destinations of the emigrants and the effect of migration both upon them and the Ireland they left behind. This was the migration of a part of the Irish middle class, small in terms of Irish emigration as a whole, but important in the global history of medical migration. At the end of the twentieth century doctor migration as a whole has increased and become a significant part of the medical experience. The book is a contribution to the growing literature on the global history of doctor movements across the world.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgements List of Figures and Tables Abbreviations Introduction  1 Irish Emigration  2 Doctor Migration  3 The Internationalisation of Medicine  4 The Structure of the Book 1 The Medical Institutions of Ireland  1 The Medical Registration Act 1858  2 The Evolution of Irish Medical Education  3 The Hospitals  4 The Poor Law  5 Professional Organisations in Ireland and Britain  6 The Number of Doctors in Ireland  7 The Over-Production of Doctors in Ireland  8 Conclusion 2 Making a Medical Living  1 General Practice in Ireland and England  2 General Practice in Ireland  3 Private Practice  4 The Doctors’ Boycott  5 Conclusion 3 The British Empire  1 The Indian Medical Service  2 Far-Flung Shores  3 Those Who Returned  4 The IMS and the Scientific Mind  5 The Decline of the Colonial Medical Services  6 Conclusion 4 Medicine, Migration and the Making of the Irish Middle Class  1 The Costs of Medical Education in Ireland  2 Catholics, Medicine and Social Mobility  3 The Catholic Middle Classes and Medicine  4 Income, Class and Migration  5 Migration, Money and the Middle-Class Family  6 Migration and a Medical Dynasty  7 Migration and Poverty  8 Ireland’s Intellectual Resources  9 Conclusion 5 Partition  1 The Settlement in Health  2 The Registration Crisis  3 Connections Maintained  4 The Border with Ireland  5 The Future of Medicine in Ireland  6 The Notion of Being Irish and Emigration  7 Conclusion 6 The Irish Doctor in Interwar Britain  1 The Insurance Act and Migration  2 The Distribution of Graduates from Irish Medical Schools  3 Friendship and Collegiality  4 The “Powerful Army” of Catholic Doctors and Practice in Britain  5 The Guild of SS Luke, Cosmos and Damian  6 Professional Integration  7 The Role of the State in Health Care  8 The National Health Service and the Irish Migrant Doctor  9 Conclusion 7 The Lure of America  1 The Rockefeller Visit to Ireland  2 Medical Immigration to the United States  3 The AMA, Doctor Immigration and the Approved List  4 The Irish Medical Emigrant and the USA  5 The Approved List and the Foreign Medical Schools  6 Ireland and the Approved List  7 The Irish Medical Schools and the Irish Doctor  8 The End of the Approved List  9 Conclusion 8 Inward Migration  1 The State and Medical Education  2 Medical Education in the New Era  3 Foreign Students  4 A Private Medical School in the Age of Globalisation  5 The Future of Irish Medical Emigration  6 Conclusion Epilogue Appendix Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Greta Jones is emeritus professor of history at Ulster University and the author of several books on Darwinism, eugenics and the history of tuberculosis. With help from the Wellcome Trust, she set up the Centre for the History of Medicine in Ireland at Ulster University. In 2019 she was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.

Review :
"Doctors for Export is a hugely impressive contribution to both Irish and global medical historiography. The book benefits from a truly rich level of qualitative and quantitative research and thorough analysis that is attentive to sensitive matters such as Irish identity." ---- Ian Miller, in: Bulletin of the History of Medicine (2023) 97 (1): pp.163-165