The impact of civil disturbances on the migration of physicians: the case of Lebanon.
During the 1970s, the migratory flow of physicians was an issue of major concern to the world medical community. Numerous publications have focused on the issue of the foreign medical graduates in the United States the impact of the "brain drain" on developing countries, and the various related issues of licensure, quality of medical care, "reverse" foreign aid, and ways and means to stem the tide of migration. Of the numerous studies on this subject, however, few have focused on the impact of civil disturbances and political instability on the decision of physicians to emigrate, even though this type of migration has been known to occur during or subsequent to political crises. Examples include the large-scale emigration of Hungarian, Cuban, and Czechoslovakian physicians to the United States in the late 1950s and 1960s. Mejia refers to this type of migration and characterizes it as "... likely to be sudden, to reach a high peak within a short period of time and to decline almost as rapidly...." This description fits closely the definition of a "point epidemic"--a condition wherein the political events that led to the outflow of these physicians constituted a one-time event, limited in time and duration. Lebanon presents a different picture: ever-raging civil disturbances have plagued that country continuously for the past 11 years. The epidemiologic analogy is more akin to an "endemic" situation, with point exacerbations and remissions between ferocious fighting and relative peace leading to situations of acute, subacute, and chronic civil instability.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
D002960:Civil Disorders; D003625:Data Collection; D004641:Emigration and Immigration; D007861:Lebanon; D010820:Physicians / Q000600:supply & distribution*