PADHUE stands for praticien a diplome hors Union europeenne: a doctor, dentist, pharmacist or midwife holding a qualification awarded outside the European Union. In France such a practitioner may not practise on the strength of that qualification alone and must first complete the authorisation procedure organised under the Public Health Code.
French administrative acronym: praticien a diplome hors Union europeenne, literally practitioner with a degree from outside the European Union
praticien a diplome etranger, PADHUE, medecin a diplome hors UE
physician with a non-EU medical degree
The status depends on where the qualification was awarded, not on the holder's nationality. Anyone who obtained a medical degree in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lebanon, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey or any other state outside the European Union and the European Economic Area is treated in France as a practitioner with a non-EU qualification. A degree obtained in an EU member state follows an entirely different route, that of automatic recognition under Directive 2005/36/EC. This single distinction decides whether a career in France takes months or several years, which is why it should be clarified before enrolling anywhere.
The Public Health Code makes practising medicine in France conditional on holding a recognised qualification, being registered with the Ordre National des Medecins and meeting a nationality requirement. Holders of a non-EU qualification reach that point through the procedure d'autorisation d'exercice: first the epreuves de verification des connaissances, a competitive knowledge examination organised by speciality, then a supervised consolidation period in a French hospital, and finally an opinion from the national authorisation commission before the ministry responsible for health issues the individual authorisation.
For a candidate from Casablanca, Algiers or Tunis the practical consequence is straightforward. A degree earned at home, however demanding, leads to the long route. A medical degree earned in an EU member state places the holder in the recognition system instead. Anyone planning to return to Morocco, Algeria or Tunisia afterwards should look at this from both ends, because the home country runs its own recognition procedure for foreign qualifications and usually asks for the diploma, the transcript of records and an apostille or consular legalisation.
Many candidates assume that a period of hospital work in France, a research post or a diplome inter-universitaire gradually converts into the right to practise. It does not. Those activities are valuable and may strengthen an application, but the authorisation itself is issued only at the end of the formal procedure. A second frequent error is to equate the situation of a third-country qualification with that of a third-country nationality: the two questions are examined separately, and the nationality condition carries its own special provisions.
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