The registration with the French Medical Council (“Conseil de l’Ordre des médecins” in French) may appear as a long and tedious process but if you have the right methodology, this can be run seamlessly.

We are here to help you and assist you in this process, and this assistance is of course free of charge (just like the rest of our consulting work) to all our doctor candidates seeking for an adequate role and future professional challenge in France.

Step 1 and 2: searching for a job and securing a work contract

The first thing to know is that you need to have a job secured in order to be able to apply, meaning that you need to send to the French Medical Council (“Conseil de l’Ordre des Médecins”) a signed work or collaboration contract together with the rest of your documents.

Whether applying as an employee of the public healthcare system or as a self-employed doctor working in collaboration with a clinic or by yourself (for eg. as a GP in his/her own practice), you need to have this contract. You cannot secure your registration just as a freelance candidate without a contract (although this was possible in the past).

Step 3: collecting your documents meanwhile

As the job search can last several weeks to several months, the best thing to do in the meantime is to gather all necessary documents which should be sent later to the Ordre des Médecins together with your work or collaboration contract. The list of required documents includes among others both certificates of conformity from your local Health Ministry, copies of degrees, certificate of good standing, filled application file (‘dossier’) of the Ordre des Médecins, clean criminal record of less than 3 months when applying. Therefore, the latter document must be produced and sent to the Ordre des Médecins in the last stage of your application process. All documents must be translated into French by a regular or official translator from your home country.

You can find the list of required documents (available in French, English, Romanian, Bulgarian, Italian) on our website (see link below) or just send us an email at info@agisante.com and we will send you this list for free.

About the required language level

Although the Ordre des Médecins does not specify it as such, it should be at least at B2 level (upper intermediate) or ideally C1 (fluent). No certificate is needed like the DELF or the DALF from a French Institute or an Alliance Française. Yet, it is good to provide one if available. There will be an interview with a representative of the Ordre des Médecins and this person will judge whether your level is good enough to ensure a smooth level of communication with patients and thus give you the authorization to work or not. In the worst case, you may be asked to come back at a later stage to perform a new interview, hoping you will have improved your linguistic skills in the meantime.

Step 4: submitting your application file to the Ordre des médecins

Once you have secured a job or collaboration contract and collected all necessary documents together with their translations and the filled form of the Ordre des médecins, you will need to send the complete application file to the Conseil départemental de l’Ordre des Médecins in the “département” (smaller administrative region – there are 100 in France) where you would like to work. Upon receiving your full application file, the Conseil départemental de l’Ordre des médecins will check whether no document is missing and if complete it will send the documents to the Conseil national de l’Ordre des Médecins in Paris. There, ad hoc lawyers will check your documents and more specifically your certificates of conformity.

At AGISANTÉ, based on our 13-year long experience, we are able to tell candidates whether their certificates will be accepted right away or not. This is very important to know this from the beginning as candidates should not give their resignation prior to receiving their confirmation of registration with the Ordre des médecins.

Usually the process of receiving an answer from the Ordre national des Médecins as to whether your documents are OK and you are eligible to work as a doctor in France takes about two months.

Step 5: the interview with a representative of the Ordre des médecins

Once the Ordre national has communicated its positive decision to the Ordre départemental des médecins where you initially left your full application file, the Ordre départemental will notify this to you and invite you for a face to face interview with one of its representatives. Thus you will need to travel there prior to starting your job (provided you pass the interview of course). Once the representative of the Conseil départemental de l’Ordre des médecins has met you and given his/her consent to accept you as a fellow doctor of the local Medical Council, the local Council shall meet with all its members and make the decision to accept you or not. This meeting usually takes place once a month and during the month following to your meeting with the representative.

Step 6: getting registered with the Ordre des médecins

Once you have been positively notified and thus been accepted in the Ordre départemental, you will need to pay the yearly registration fee (€ 335, but 50% for the first year of registration) and then receive your doctor’s card (‘Caducée’) and “RPPS” number which will be your number as a doctor in the national official registry of French healthcare professionals (including not only doctors).

Conclusion: patience, methodology and team up with the right recruitment partner

So work may start only then after all these steps have successfully done. All in all, the whole process takes 3 to 4 months prior to start your job in France – provided papers are  approved and the interview goes well. Please do not give your resignation in your home country prior to having received the official confirmation of registration with the Ordre des Médecins.

We are here to help you find an adequate job as a doctor in France. Our assistance also includes French language course for people having at least some basics in French and meeting our clients’ expectations in terms of experience and profile.

Guillaume BERNARD

Founder, Managing Director – AGISANTÉ Healthcare Recruitment Ltd

E-mail: info@agisante.com

Website: www.agisante.com

Useful downloads (documents’ list): http://www.agisante.com/sites/default/files/agisante-liste_des_documents_inscription_com_france.pdf)

Our YouTube channel gives you more details as well (in French and English):

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUYxzTT95HpwtfATWmm3ZLQ

Blog: http://sinscrirealordre.fr/videos-in-english/

French Medical Council: https://www.conseil-national.medecin.fr/

The Belgian healthcare market: who are the most requested?

Since we started our activity in 2007 with our European medical recruitment agency AGISANTÉ (www.agisante.com), we have been able to notice trends in the French and Belgian markets, particularly with regard to the most requested medical specialties.

Despite more or less sensitive variations each year, the most requested specialties remain more or less the same. After our article about the most requested specialists in Francewe want to give you our "TOP 5" of the most requested medical specialties in France today (NB: this classification is based on our empirical observation).

TOP 5 of the most wanted specialties

1. Geriatrics
2. Radiology
3. Child Psychiatry
4. Neurology
5. Emergency

Geriatricians and radiologists are very requested

Since the recent change in Geriatrics and Emergency specialties, private and public healthcare structures are lacking of these specialists.

Interventional Radiologists are in high demand. To be able to work in Belgium, Child Psychiatrists and Neurologists are required to have a B2 French language level.

Cardiologists and Anesthetists in low demand

Please note that Belgium isn’t currently looking for Anaesthetists and Cardiologists. Nephrologists are also in very low demand, while Haematologists and Pulmonologists are sought.

 

Notre analyse et nos conseils

Il existe en France près de 300.000 médecins inscrits au tableau de l’Ordre des médecins. Selon le dernier rapport du Conseil national de l’Ordre des médecins (janvier 2018 – https://www.conseil-national.medecin.fr/sites/default/files/cnom_atlas_2018_0.pdf), la densité médicale nationale (métropole + Départements et Territoires d’Outre-Mer ou « DOM-TOM ») moyenne est de 270.3 médecins pour 100.000 habitants.

En France métropolitaine, la plus faible densité est de 224.6 médecins pour 100 000 habitants en région Centre-Val-de-Loire (suivie de la Picardie) tandis que la région Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur enregistre la plus forte densité avec 343.9 médecins pour 100.000 habitants. En résumé, les régions où il existe de grandes métropoles (par ex. : Lille, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nantes, Strasbourg, etc.) et/ou qui sont proches de la mer (ou d’une frontière) et bénéficiant d’un climat ensoleillé (Côte d’azur) n’ont pas de difficulté à attirer des médecins. Là où il y a concentration de population et donc production de richesses et/ou du soleil, il y a des médecins.

Mais ce sont les régions que les médecins français préfèrent aussi et il est donc plus difficile d’y trouver un poste libre quand on vient de l’étranger, même dans les spécialités les plus recherchées (cardiologie, neurologie, anesthésie, radiologie, etc.). Les conditions d’accueil sont aussi moins favorables que dans certaines régions de France qui ont plus besoin de médecins, comme par exemple l’Auvergne, le Limousin, le Centre, la Picardie, la Lorraine, la Champagne-Ardenne, la Bourgogne, la Franche-Comté, etc.

Nous aidons des établissements de soins à recruter typiquement dans ce type de régions qui ont plus de difficultés pour attirer des médecins. Là, les médecins étrangers peuvent être accueillis dans de bonnes conditions (logement, collègues, possibilité d’évolution professionnelle, etc.), tout simplement parce que l’on a plus besoin d’eux à ces endroits !

Autres atouts d’une vie « à la campagne » ou dans une petite ville:

• l’immobilier y est moins cher,
• l’insécurité est plus faible,
• la qualité de vie meilleure : moins de stress, meilleurs rapports sociaux, etc.
• Pour une vie de famille, il s’agit d’un environnement de vie idéal, notamment pour y élever des enfants qui ont facilement accès à de nombreuses activités sportives et récréatives.

Nous disposons d’opportunités de travail pour des médecins salariés et libéraux, par exemple dans le Centre de la France, à proximité des Châteaux de la Loire, soit à environ 2h30 de Paris, ou encore dans la région Bourgogne, à 1h30 de Paris. Saviez-vous que nous avons également des opportunités à 30 ou 45mn de voiture ou de train/voiture  seulement de villes comme Strasbourg ou Nancy qui sont des villes offrant une grande palette d’activités culturelles ?

N’hésitez pas à consulter nos offres dans votre spécialité ici :

http://www.agisante.com/fr/opportunites/liste

Il nous apparait en fin de compte qu’exercer dans un Centre Hospitalier d’une ville petite ou moyenne (typiquement de 10.000 à 30.000 habitants), bien équipée, sûre et à proximité d’une grande métropole et souvent bien reliée à un aéroport international est un bon choix pour l’avenir d’un médecin étranger venant directement de l’étranger, qui plus est lorsqu’il vient accompagné de sa famille. Une condition est toutefois fortement recommandée : disposer d’un permis de conduire.

N’hésitez pas à nous contacter pour plus d’informations sur nos opportunités.

Guillaume Bernard, Associate Director and Consultant France (guillaume.bernard/at/agisante.com)

The French medical market: who is the most requested?

Since we started our activity in 2007 with our European medical recruitment agency AGISANTÉ (www.agisante.com), we have been able to notice trends in the French and Belgian markets, particularly with regard to the most requested medical specialties.

Despite more or less sensitive variations each year, the most requested specialties remain more or less the same. Hereinafter, we want to give you our "TOP 5" of the most requested medical specialties in France today (NB: this classification is based on our empirical observation).

1. Anesthesiology - reanimation
2. Radiology
3. Cardiology (conventional in hospital, interventional as liberal)
4. General medicine (liberal, self-employed)
5. Geriatrics

Anesthetists and Radiologists in high demand

It should be noted that ophthalmology, especially with surgical capacity, whether in a hospital setting or in a liberal exercise, may also be included in this classification. On the other hand,there are few general practitioner posts in hospitals equivalent to the liberal exercise, except for so-called "polyvalent" medicine. On the other hand, general practitioners in hospitals are in great demand and appreciated if they agree to invest in SRH ("Continuation and Rehabilitation Care"), Geriatrics, or even other services (cardiology, neurology, emergencies, etc.).This can be a good entry point for a career in France.

Some specialists are less demanded

Conversely, we can cite some specialties that are little in demand, or rarely, such as general / visceral surgery, medical biology, infectious diseases or dermatology(rare positions in hospitals, but great opportunities as liberal in all France).

The further away from major cities and hospitals, the greater the demand for these specialties.

It goes without saying that we have available positions in the specialties mentioned above and are the most sought after. Do not hesitate to contact us for more information.

Guillaume Bernard, Associate Director and Consultant France (guillaume.bernard/at/agisante.com)