Health professionals' migration: the Portuguese case.

Migration of health professionals has been an important issue on the agenda of governments in recent years. The European Union directive on the recognition of professional qualifications coupled with labour shortages in the health sector has led to a growing mobility of physicians from both European countries and non-European Economic Area (EEA) countries. This study takes a deeper look at these migration phenomena in the Portuguese case. A significantly convergent dual pattern of migration is shown to emerge, in which the growth of intra-European migration has broadly continued to coexist with the maintenance of traditional overseas immigration channels.