Hi, I'm new in Switzerland and I am a trainee radiologist from the UK living here on maternity leave. My husband lives here and I'm hoping to come back to join him in a couple of years. Has anyone managed to find a job in the medical profession without speaking much German? Alternatively, are there any tele-radiology firms or English speaking medical clinics here? Would love some advice.

Welcome to the Forum.

Introductions isn't really the right place to ask for this sort of advice. One of the ideas of the Forum is that advice given to one person can be found by, and is useful to, others so please check out similar subject matter and then post your questions in the relevant Forum.

Hope all goes well with you while you are in Switzerland and that you can realise your goal of finding work here later.

I work in Radio-oncology as a therapist and didn't speak a word of German before starting work here, the same as many of my colleagues, up to half of our team are English speakers with no German when they start work. This is only allowed for a couple of reasons as we do work directly with local German only speaking patients. There is quite a shortage and our foreign training is seen as a bit better than the standard Swiss training (we do 3 years dedicated training as opposed to maybe a few of months standard here in Switzerland -they do radiology, nuclear med and radio oncology combined here). Also, for some strange reason no registration is required here for us, if it was we would need B2 German -or other Swiss language- minimum. I'm not sure about registration for Doctors though.

So, it could be worth a try. If they are desperate for staff and you are willing to learn German they might give you a job.

You are here NOW and want to come to work in a couple of years- so plenty of time to take German classes and learn as much as poss now you are here- then keep up learning when you go back to UK. Easy Peasy.

Hi Hilary, I don't know much about working in the medical profession, but I would surely use this time, whilst enjoying your pregnancy of course, to take a German class. If your plan is to come over here in a couple of years time permanently, then as Odile said, above, you've got plenty of time to get yourself upto a decent level in German! If you've got all the qualifications needed in your profression whilst at the same time being able to hold coversations in German - well there you go, no worries, I'm sure you'll find a job! Anyway, good luck!

Thanks for your advice and words of encouragement. I shall endeavour to learn some more German. Also, apologies for putting this thread in the wrong place. I didn't really know where start!