Name: Germanys foreign medical worker program mired in bureaucracy
Uploaded: 2025-12-09T18:48:31.111Z
Duration: 3 min 47 s
Description: Germany is looking for foreign medical specialists in Latin America with a program that helps them with housing, visas, and guidance. But navigating a rigorous certification process remains a challenge.

Germany is looking for foreign medical specialists in Latin America with a program that helps them with housing, visas, and guidance. But navigating a rigorous certification process remains a challenge.

Belitz

Germany has implemented a program to bring foreign doctors, primarily from countries with a surplus of medical professionals such as Mexico and Colombia, to address shortages in its healthcare sector. Despite the program's benefits, participants must navigate a lengthy and complex process, including language requirements, visa procedures, and varying certification standards across Germany's federal states.

Doctors in the program receive support with housing and bureaucracy, but must obtain their qualification to practice within two years of arrival. Nearly 50,000 healthcare jobs in Germany remained unfilled between 2023 and 2024, highlighting the urgency of streamlining the recognition and integration process for foreign medical professionals.

Germany's foreign medical worker program mired in bureaucracy

Dr. Freddy Bautista-Vanegas is making his rounds here in a Parkinson's clinic in Billitz, Germany, an hour from Berlin. Before coming to Germany, he practiced medicine in his home country of Bolivia, but the process to become a certified doctor here has been a long one. I have to be very honest with you. This process is a bit tedious. It is a bit long, but with a lot of perseverance, a lot of support and a lot of patience, we can achieve it. Bautista-Vanegas is one of approximately 300 doctors that have come to Germany through a program aimed at reducing job vacancies in health care. It also benefits partner countries. In Mexico, for example, 40,000 medical students graduate each year and compete for just under 18,000 training positions. Bautista-Vanegas is far from home, but feels welcomed by his colleagues and patients alike. And the patients always ask, where are you from? What are you doing here? When I tell them I'm from Bolivia, most of them automatically become happy, start smiling and say, oh, I was in Bolivia. Bolivia is so nice. I went on a vacation to Bolivia. Since 2017, Germany's Federal Employment Agency has been running an initiative that places specialized doctors from mostly Mexico and Colombia into German health care facilities. Well, for us, it is really important to work with countries who have a surplus of professionals in a certain area. So they won't have a shortage in their own countries. So we have as like focus countries, for instance, Mexico and Colombia, because that is the case. Between 2023 and 2024, nearly 50,000 critical jobs in health care will be lost. Between 2023 and 2024, nearly 50,000 critical jobs in health care remained unfulfilled in Germany, according to the country's public health agency. Medical professionals going through the program, like Bautista-Vanegas, have to learn upper intermediate B2 level of German in their own countries. Then there is a visa process, which can take several months. In Germany, doctors practice under the supervision of a senior doctor while studying and taking a series of other qualifying tests. Next week, I have the phase four exam, which is the exam for technical medical language. Once we pass this exam, we only have the last one left. Doctors in the program must obtain the qualification to practice medicine within two years of arriving here. The specialized program helps them with nearly every step of getting settled, from finding housing to navigating the often complicated bureaucracy. For example, each of Germany's 16 federal states has different requirements for becoming a certified doctor. A good guidance through this federal system, the different recognition processes, that should be more streamlined in the future. It will be, I think. But until now, it's one of the biggest challenges also for us. Meanwhile, Bautista-Vanegas prepares for his medical technical German language test next week. The last one of two.

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