Abstract
The paper concerns the processes by which migrant physicians seek to re-establish themselves professionally in a new society. The empirical findings are drawn from a study of physicians who emigrated from the former Soviet Union in the early nineties to three different destinations: Canada, Israel, and the United States. The existential quality of the migration experience was explored by means of a set of life-history narratives related by immigrant physicians. Despite major structural differences among the three hosts, there are several important similarities in the processes observed in the three settings. The first concerns the high salience of the professional role for immigrant physicians and their determined efforts to regain their lossed status. These efforts are constrained by structural elements characterizing the three hosts. The second relates to the mediating effects of gender and age in the reconstruction of professional identity: female immigrant physicians are relatively disadvantaged as are older persons in the occupational sphere. Immigrant physicians who decide not to pursue medical licensure often redefine their occupational identity in areas that are close to the health field. Differences noted among the three groups are a function of structural differences among the three host societies.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Heitlinger A: Czech nursing during and after communism. In: Olgiati V, Orzack L, Saks M, eds. Professions, Identity, and Order in Comparative Perspective. Onati: International Institute for the Sociology of Law; 1996:123-148
Shuval JT, Bernstein JH (eds): Immigrant Physicians: Former Soviet Doctors in Israel, Canada and the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 1997
Allsop J, Mulcahy L: Deconstructing professional identity: Doctors' public and private responses to criticism. In: Olgiati V, Orzack L, Saks M, eds. Professions, Identity, and Order in Comparative Perspective. Onati: International Institute for the Sociology of Law; 1996:73-95
Weeks J: Inventing Moralities: Sexual Values in an Age of Uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press; 1995
Hunt S, Symonds A: The Social Meaning of Midwifery. London: Macmillan Press; 1995
Evetts, J: Professional engineering identities and jurisdictional competition. In: Olgiati V, Orzack L, Saks M, eds. Professions, Identity, and Order in Comparative Perspective. Onati: International Institute for the Sociology of Law; 1996:57-70
Freidson E: The reorganization of the medical profession. Med Care Rev 1985; 42:11-35
Shuval JT: Some latent functions of credentialling: The case of immigrant physicians to Israel. In: Olgiati V, Orzack L, Saks M, eds. Professions, Identity, and Order in Comparative Perspective. Onati: International Institute for the Sociology of Law; 1996:109-121
Lodahl TM, Kejner M: The definition and measurement of job involvement. J Appl Psychol 1965; 49:24-33
Kanungo RN: Measurement of job and work involvement. J Appl Psychol 1982; 67:341-349
Blau GJ: Further exploring the meaning and measurement of career commitment. J Vocation Behav 1988; 32:284-297
Shamir B: Protestant work ethic, work involvement and the psychological impact of unemployment. J Occup Behav 1986; 7:25-38
Shuval JT, Bernstein JH: The dynamics of professional commitment: Immigrant physicians from the former Soviet Union in Israel. Soc Sci Med 1996; 42:965-974
Thoits PA: Multiple identities and psychological well-being. Am Sociol Rev 1983; 48:174-187
Warr P, Jackson P: Men without jobs: Some correlates of age and length of unemployment. J Occup Psychol 1985; 57:77-85
Saunders EA: Resettlement experiences of Russian Jewish immigrants in Vancouver, Canada, between 1975 and 1982. Int Migrat 1985; 23:369-380
Abbott A: The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labour. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; 1988
Witz A: Professions and Patriarchy. London and New York: Routledge; 1992
Anthony PD: The Ideology of Work. London: Tavistock; 1977
Jones A (ed): Professions and the State: Expertise and Autonomy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Philadelphia: Temple University Press; 1991
Kennedy MD, Sadkowski K: Constraints on professional power in Soviet-type societies: Insights from the 1980-1981 solidarity period in Poland. In: Jones A, ed. Professions and the State: Expertise and Autonomy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Philadelphia: Temple University Press; 1991:167-206
Krause E: Professions and the state in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe: Theoretical issues. In: Jones A, ed. Professions and the State: Expertise and Autonomy in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Philadelphia: Temple University Press; 1991:3-42
Macdonald KM: The Sociology of the Professions. London: Sage; 1995
Scott WR: Professionals in bureaucracies—Areas of conflict. In: Vollmer HM, Mills DI, eds. Professionalization. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall; 1966:265-275
Vickers G: The changing nature of the professions. Am Behav Sci 1974; 18:164-189
Frenk H: The political economy of medical underemployment in Mexico: Corporatism, economic crisis and reform. Health Policy 1990; 15:143-162
Ha Doan BD, Butter I, Field MG, Rosenthal M (eds): The political dynamics of physician manpower policy. Health Policy 1990; 15: Nos. 2 and 3
Kindig DA, Taylor CM: Growth in the international physician supply. JAMA 1985; 253:3129-3132
Moran M: Distributional Struggles in the German Health Care System: The Cases of Cost Containment and the Doctor Glut. The European Policy Research Unit, Department of Government, Manchester: University of Manchester; 1990
Riska E: Unemployed doctors: A challenge to the medical profession. J Roy Soc Med 1996; 89:382-384
Schepers R: The Belgian medical profession since the 1980s: Dominance and decline? In: Johnson T, Larkin G, Saks M, eds. Health Professions and the State in Europe. London: Routledge; 1995:162-177
Bankowski Z, Fulop T (eds): Health Manpower Out of Balance. Geneva: Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences; 1987
Meija A: The nature of the challenge. In: Bankowski Z, Fulop T (eds): Health Manpower Out of Balance. Geneva: Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences; 1987: 15-40
Pew Health Professions Commission: Critical Challenges: Revitalizing the Health Professions for the Twentieth-First Century, Third Report. PHPC; 1995
Rosenthal M, Butter I, Field MG: Setting the context. Health Policy 1990; 15:75-79.
Shuval JT: Medical manpower in Israel: Political processes and constraints. Health Policy 1990; 15:189-214
Svensson LG: From professional organization to professionalism. In: Olgiati V, Orzack L, Saks M, eds. Professions, Identity, and Order in Comparative Perspective. Onati: International Institute for the Sociology of Law; 1996:307-322
Tousijn W: Comparative perspectives on professionalism: Differences and similarities in search of a theory. In: Olgiati V, Orzack L, Saks M, eds. Professions, Identity, and Order in Comparative Perspective. Onati: International Institute for the Sociology of Law; 1996
Kunz EF: The Intruders: Refugee Doctors in Australia. Canberra: Australian National University Press; 1975
Rutland SD: An example of ‘intellectual barbarism': The story of ‘alien’ Jewish medical practitioners in Australia, 1933–1956. Yad Vashem Studies 1987; XVIII:233-257
Shuval JT: Newcomers and Colleagues: Soviet Immigrant Physicians in Israel. Galveston: Cap and Gown Press; 1983
Stevens R, Goodman LW, Mick SS: The Alien Doctors: Foreign Medical Graduates in American Hospitals. New York: John Wiley and Sons; 1978
Basok T: Soviet immigration to Canada: The end of the refugee program? In: Basok T, Brym RJ, eds. Soviet Jewish Emigration and Resettlement in the 1990s. Toronto: York Lanes Press; 1991: Chap 10
Bernstein JH, Shuval JT: Occupational continuity and change among immigrant physicians from the former Soviet Union in Israel. Int Migrat 1995; 33:3-29
Ofer G, Flug K, Kassir N: The absorption in employment of immigrants from the Soviet Union: 1990 and beyond. Econ Q 1991; 48:135-171 (in Hebrew)
Cohen JJ: AAMC Response to the Pew Commission Report. Washington, DC: American Association of Medical Colleges; 1996
Cumming PA, Lee LD, Oreopoulos DG: Access! Task Force on Access to Professions and Trades in Ontario. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Citizenship; 1989
McDade K: Barriers to the Recognition of the Credentials of Immigrants in Canada, Studies in Social Policy. Ottawa: Institute for Research in Public Policy; 1988
Nirel N, Naveh G: The Employment of Immigrant Physicians in Israel. Is it Stable? Selected Characteristics of the Employment of Immigrant Physicians from the Former Soviet Union, Research Report RR265-96. Jerusalem: JDC–Brookdale Institute of Gerontology and Human Development; 1996 (in Hebrew)
Basok T: The Admission and Licensing of Immigrant Physicians in Canada, In: Shuval JT, Bernstein JH, eds. Immigrant Physicians: Former Soviet Doctors in Israel, Canada and the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 1997:93-115
Feder-Bubis P: Patterns of professional commitment in the stories of immigrant physicians from the former Soviet Union in Israel. In: Shuval JT, Bernstein JH, eds. Immigrant Physicians: Former Soviet Doctors in Israel, Canada and the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 1997:61-80
Young RF, Schecter K, Rosenthal M: A study of Soviet immigrant physicians in the United States. In: Shuval JT, Bernstein JH, eds. Immigrant Physicians: Former Soviet Doctors in Israel, Canada and the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 1997:133-152
Schecter K: Physicians and health care in the former Soviet Union. In: Shuval JT, Bernstein JH, eds. Immigrant Physicians: Former Soviet Doctors in Israel, Canada and the United States. Westport, CT: Greenwood; 1997:29-40
Coronel G: Complementary Medicine as a Mechanism of Occupational Absorption of Immigrant Physicians from the Former Soviet Union, Unpublished MPH thesis. Jerusalem: School of Public Health, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; 1995 (In Hebrew, English abstract)
Massey DS, Arango J, Hugo G, Kouaouci A, Pellegrino A, Taylor JE: Theories of international migration: A review and appraisal. Popul Dev Rev 1993; 19:431-466
Shin EH, Chong KS: Peripherization of immigrant professionals: Korean physicians in the United States. Int Migrat Rev 1988; 22:609-626
Ben-Nun G, Ben-Uri D: International Comparisons of OECD Countries and Israel. Jerusalem: Ministry of Health; 1996
Canada Bureau of Statistics: Canada Year Book 1994. Ottawa: Canada Statistics; 1994
Hunter B: The Statesman's Year-Book: Statistical and Historical Annual of the States of the World for the Year 1995–1996. London and Basingsoke: Macmillan; 1995
Israel Central Bureau of Statistics: Statistical Abstract of Israel 1995, 46th ed. Jerusalem: Central Bureau of Statistics; 1995
Israel Central Bureau of Statistics: Labour Force Survey 1994. Jerusalem: Central Bureau of Statistics; 1996
Israel Central Bureau of Statistics: Statistical Abstract of Israel 1996, 47th ed. Jerusalem: Central Bureau of Statistics; 1996
Lipshitz G: Regional Disparities, Immigration and Internal Migration: The Canadian Case in the Theoretical Context. Jerusalem: Israel Association for Canadian Studies; 1996
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: The Reform of Health Care Systems: A Review of Seventeen OECD Countries. Paris: OECD; 1994
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development: OECD Health Data, electronic ed. Paris: OECD; 1996
UNESCO: 1995. Statistical Yearbook. Paris: UNESCO; and New York: Bernan Press; 1995
United States Bureau of the Census: Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1995, 115th ed. Washington, DC: Department of Commerce; 1995
World Bank: World Development Report 1996: From Plan to Market. New York: Oxford University Press; 1996
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Shuval, J.T. The Reconstruction of Professional Identity Among Immigrant Physicians in Three Societies. Journal of Immigrant Health 2, 191–202 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009588229071
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009588229071