The project will explore the ways in which return migration of health professionals affects the transformations of medical practice at an individual and at a systemic level. It will focus on the case of Romania and it will establish a comparative perspective, building on currently ongoing research on the same topic in Bulgaria, using a mixed-methods approach of policy analysis and qualitative research. Drawing on the concept of medical habitus, the project formulates the hypothesis that return migration creates the potential for transformations in the medical practices by exposing mobile professionals to alternative medical systems and modes of practice. It thus aims to examine the experience of returning health professionals who have been exposed to different medical systems; the modes and steps of re-integration and the established networks; and the concrete transformative steps taken for advancement of knowledge transfer and improvement of health systems in the home country.

A full-length study is available here.