Medical Licence and Recognition: What a Medical Degree from the EU Is Worth

The legal basis

What governs this is EU Professional Qualifications Directive 2005/36/EC. It provides for the automatic recognition of evidence of formal qualifications for doctors, dentists, pharmacists and veterinary surgeons within the EU and the EEA. The condition is that the faculty and the qualification are listed in Annex V of the directive. All state medical faculties in Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Croatia and the Baltic states meet this condition – which universities these are in detail is shown in the overview of locations.

Automatic means: the authority no longer examines whether your training is equivalent in content. It checks the authenticity of the documents and your eligibility to practise. There is no competency examination.

The route to the German medical licence

1. Identify the responsible authority. The competent body is the licensing authority of the federal state in which you want to work.
2. Assemble your documents: final certificate and diploma, transcript, birth certificate, criminal record certificate, a medical certificate of health fitness, curriculum vitae and the EU certificate of conformity from your university.
3. Have everything translated and certified. All documents in another language must be handled by sworn translators.
4. Submit the application and allow for processing time.

The EU certificate of conformity is the central document. It confirms that your programme meets the minimum requirements of the directive, that is, at least five years of study and 5,500 teaching hours. You apply for it at the end of your degree through your university's international office. How the degree is structured up to that point is described in the article The structure of the medical degree, explained year by year.

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Recognition in Switzerland

I went through this route myself. The competent body is the Swiss federal recognition office for medical professions. For diplomas from the EU and EFTA, recognition takes place on the basis of the Agreement on the Free Movement of Persons. Recognition is followed by entry in the register of medical professions, after which practising is possible, initially under supervision and later independently in line with cantonal rules. The full process including a salary calculation is described in the report Moving to Switzerland as a doctor.

One practical point: Switzerland requires complete, properly translated documents. Anyone who prepares that carefully will get through the procedure predictably.

How this differs from qualifications outside the EU

For qualifications from countries outside the EU a different procedure applies: the authority assesses the equivalency of the training in terms of content. Where substantial differences exist, a competency examination must be taken; it covers the material of the state examination and includes practical and oral parts. That is manageable, but it costs preparation time and money. The current state of this procedure is set out under Recognition of foreign qualifications in healthcare.

For choosing a location this means: anyone who wants to keep the route as straight as possible chooses a state university within the EU. Whether a university is officially listed can be checked in advance – how to do that is explained in the article anabin explained: what H+ means. That is precisely why our focus is on EU locations.

Which EU location suits your situation is something we clarify in a free consultation.

Timeline: when to start what

• Final year of study: apply for the EU certificate of conformity, choose the authority, request its checklist.
• After the state examination: have the diploma and transcript translated, apply for a criminal record certificate.
• Straight afterwards: submit the application. Job applications can run in parallel; many hospitals hire subject to the licence being granted.

Where this qualification can lead afterwards is shown in the overview Career paths with an EU medical degree.