Hi I'm afraid so, if you've got full UK licence you can already apply to get it recognised in Switzerland asap (you have until 2024, after that it's a bit of a grey area!), so you can do this as soon as you received your full registration from the GMC, normally comes through in August when you start F2.

The trickier part is finding a job if you don't have EU citizenship as British residents no longer have priority on the job market in Switzerland.

Hi everyone, I really hope you can update us on your progress @thisislander & @HIC.

@thisislander I saw a few jobs at HCUGE (renfort COVID), Neuchâtel, Fribourg,. Also from what I have been told, it is a good idea to apply to clinical fellow or 1 year research position (there are tons at HCUGE) to get your foot on the door before applying to a post if you are a foreigner. Do you mind me asking what is your end goal in term of speciality?

I am only graduating with my medical degree in 2024 and getting the certificate of experience in 2025. MBEKO told me they have no visibility past 2024...Right now, I am applying to a bunch of hospitals to do internships as I hope that, if I can get an informal offer, it will be ok for me to apply for recognition before 31/12/2024 even without the certificate and give it later...

Good luck everyone!

Sorry to say but I doubt they’ll bend the rules like that. Have you thought about transferring Universities? Maybe you can switch your degree to a Swiss or French one now to avoid problems later?

Hi! I believe the renfort COVID posts at HUG are currently closed (unless there is a 3rd wave but i hope not!!)

Re clinical fellowship, do you know if this is offered to foreign entrant level? From what I have seen it appears that they only offer this to registrars and consultants, I assume it would be quite difficult to get as a junior? If you have any relevant links I would be most grateful if you could share this with us please!

And yes I will do my best to update, at the moment my UK citizenship is the biggest issue!

With regards to recognition post 2024 it's difficult to predict I'll be honest! If you're dead set on working in Switzerland then as mentioned by @Island Monkey, I would look into transferring unis. If you have EU citizenship it's a bonus point as well! With Brexit things are getting even more complicated... Good luck!

Thanks for those extra websites! I was looking on the HUG website, although I've just looked again now and there doesn't seem to be many any more that aren't senior! What kind of reception have you got for spontaneous applications?

and in answer to some previous questions:
The current UK-Switzerland agreement on degree recognition only runs until 2024 but I think that's probably just to give time to get something more permanent in place so hopefully UK degrees will still be recognised post-2024, but noone knows for sure right now!


I had another question:
I've heard about long-term training pathway jobs that start in November in Switzerland, how do you apply for these and should I be applying for them instead of ad hoc jobs (I'm going to be in Switzerland 2 1/2 years)? Is it similar to the system of either locuming or going onto a training pathway in the UK?

oh, and there are currently COVID jobs at HUG being advertised

It's worth mentioning that Bilateral Work Agreements (BWA) for spouses of diplomats are very common. The U.S. Department of State has more than 120 BWAs in place and more than 35 de facto work arrangements worldwide.

https://www.state.gov/family-liaison...-arrangements/

My daughter, who has US, UK, Irish and Swiss nationality and was educated through secondary school in French (including at one point L'École Int French Section in Geneva) has a First Class degree in medicine from Cambridge, clinical study at Kings and after working for the NHS as a surgeon for some years is doing a DPhil at their expense at Oxford. Early on I encouraged her to think of Switzerland as a destination but her career, and her husband's (whom she met at Cambridge and got a double first, and already finished his DPhil) is probably headed for an academic career in the UK.

She complains that while she speaks perfectly good French (she was best in the family until one of her sisters married a Frenchman) she thinks that learning French medical jargon would be, if not insuperable, conflictual. Her German is minimal: GCSE level I suppose. (But when she went to her interview years ago at Cambridge they said, perhaps jokingly, they weren't going to consider her French A level since it was too easy for her. And she had Biology, Physics and Chemistry which were more appropriate.)

And then there's her husband, with British and Australian nationality and very little French.

I would have thought that for a doctor with an academic career plan the degree recognition rules would be less stringent. But then there's the USA where even the great and the near great have to have a locally licensed physician standing by during surgery, etc.

If I were still a U.S. diplomat in Geneva, I suppose the BWA would have been relevant, but immaterial in view of my daughter's ancestral Swiss nationality.

Honestly it depends, to be honest most positions won't be advertised on the hospital websites as most medical students finishing med school in Switzerland are aware of the jobs and would have already started applying, so it's a lot of 'private networking'. Your best chance would be to send spontaneous applications to the consultants. Go to https://www.registre-isfm.ch/default.aspx, pick the specialty you'd want to apply to, bearing in mind most specialties require you to have at least a year of gen med or gen surg first, find the hospitals you'd want to apply to and then send your application with cover letter, CV and MEBEKO recognition to the consultant and hopefully this should be enough to land you an interview. I know people who sent 50+applications before securin g an interview, overall I would say I sent about 30-40 applications gen surg/gen med combined, and probably had about 4 interviews. For unsuccessful applications, more often than not they will say that they either have no spots for the immediate future or that your dossier doesn't really fit what they're looking for. But don't despair, just start applying ASAP.

Most training jobs for November are filled up now except for specialties like Psych or rehab medicine. If it's gen med or gen surg, most hospitals are now full until 2022 at least. I started applying in December 2020 and even then some posts were already full for 2021. But you just have to try and send your applications to as many centres as possible. As a foreigner you can't really afford to 'choose' where you'd want to work I'm afraid, at least for the first year or so. I'm still trying to find a post, unfortunately my citizenship (British) is not helping at all thanks to Brexit. My partner has a C permit and we're planning to get married as soon as possible so that I can be issued with a B permit that will enable me to work in Switzerland. Have you already finished F2?


Also to answer your last question, there are 2 intakes generally, in May and November. Application is the same process as I described above. Unfortunately as a foreigner I don't think we have much choice in deciding when or where we want to work because spots get filled in so quickly, my advice would be to just apply to any position you wouldn't mind working in (gen med or gen surg are safe options as most start there). From what I understand you can leave a job if you don't like it and just reapply afterwards. The most important point is to actually secure A job and set a foot into the system. Also from what I have been told there are no locums in Switzerland, if someone is ill then the boss will just rewrite the rota so that the current staff covers for the one who's sick and that might mean staying late or coming in early.

A good starting point would be to apply for these COVID renfort jobs! I might actually do this too.. Thanks I've checked the website and the offers have indeed been republished as they were closed about 2-3 weeks ago.

Google and contact Swiss English doctor lausanne
Although married to a Swiss it is not apperantly easy peasy. There are latent issues like the English nurse there who is a doctor but didn't get.. It all seems convuluted. But yes, he is our young brit familyv gp, might give u heads up

I'm currently a final year medical student and will be GMC registered in 2023. I'm however not a British or an EU citizen. I've seen in different forums that if your degree started before the Brexit they will recognise your degree. Is this not true?

Also from what I have been seeing above, it seems impossible to get registration from Mebeko if I'm not a British citizen. I will only be able to apply for Citizenship in 2025. Are there any other ways that this might work?

Many thanks