The Paragona Company, a leader in the international recruitment of doctors, has opened a modern campus that comprehensively prepares specialists from the European Union to start working at foreign medical practices. The opening of the new campus in Piaseczno, near Warsaw, is a result of the newest extended Paragona’s offer and its desire to provide doctors with the best possible conditions for professional training to enable them to start working abroad.
A comprehensive response to doctors’ needs
Staff shortages in the medical sector in Scandinavia, France, and the UK mean clinics and hospitals are more than willing to recruit foreign doctors. However, many specialists considering pursuing their careers abroad are still afraid of working in a foreign language and are concerned about the differences between medical procedures. The training courses conducted at the Paragona campus, by qualified personnel, are designed to help overcome these barriers.
“Our campus is a unique place where training courses are held for doctors from many EU countries, such as Spain, Lithuania, Croatia, Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, and Poland. They involve intensive improvement of the foreign language, including professional medical terms, and contain elements of vocational preparation, e.g., the teaching of procedures related to managing the treatment of patients abroad. Despite the formal recognition of medical diplomas and most specializations by all European countries, EU member states pose formal obstacles such as requiring a very high level of competence in the language of the targeted country. For many doctors these barriers are insurmountable.
Yet our experience shows that, thanks to a combination of On-line learning and classroom courses, they are able to make rapid progress, and that studying at a boarding school – actually an ‘ancient’ form of teaching – brings the best results”, says Kinga Łozińska, CEO of Paragona.
For this reason, before going abroad, the doctors recruited by Paragona attend intensive classroom training courses, during which, using modern and proven methods, they learn the language and the way in which the health service of the country to which they are going operates. So far, Paragona has trained more than 1,000 specialist doctors from the EU who have successfully started work at medical practices located in France, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Paragona’s new campus, where doctors from all over Europe will spend from a few weeks to even a few months, consists of training rooms, a residential area, and a recreational one. The aim of the campus is to help the company provide more comfortable learning conditions to doctors as well as to train larger groups because the demand for doctors from various professions in specific markets is growing.
“While staying at our campus, doctors not only learn the language but, above all, they also have the opportunity to talk to future employers and meet other doctors who have decided to further their careers at foreign practices. Thanks to such an approach, when the time comes to moving and start work, the specialists participating in our projects are equipped with all the tools to enable smooth and trouble-free entry into the foreign medical system”, adds Kinga Łozińska.
Recruitment into the National Health Service
Most similar centres focus only on the preparation of doctors willing to work in Scandinavia. Paragona is the only company that also offers classroom training for specialists who have decided to advance their careers in the UK. This is connected with the company’s current implementation of a multi-year project, the largest-to-date – for Britain’s National Health Service (NHS). As part of the project, several thousand general practitioners are to be recruited to work at medical institutions there. At the official opening of the campus on May 22nd, doctors participating in Paragona’s recruitment programme had the opportunity to talk to future employers from the NHS. Details relating to moving to the UK and plans for their upcoming adaptation period were also covered.
“Work at National Health Service centres is not only an opportunity to improve one’s professional skills. It also means personal growth. The programme that we are executing in cooperation with the NHS is very ‘caring’. Its greatest advantage is the fact that the general practitioners participating in our recruitment process do not have to pass the IELTS language exam or the Occupational English Test (OET). In addition, we offer assistance in all formalities related to relocation and, upon arrival in the UK, doctors receive additional supplementary and introductory training. Of no less importance is the fact that we have received official assurance from the NHS that any Brexit-related arrangements made during the execution of the project will not affect it”, says Kinga Łozińska.
The project being executed by Paragona for the NHS is divided into several stages. The pilot phase ended in the recruitment of 25 general practitioners for practices located in Lincolnshire. Currently, Paragona is focusing on finding another 100 doctors for clinics in the Central Midlands region.
Go to http://www.paragona.com
Daily life on campus... 