Doctors down under: European medical migrants in Victoria (Australia), 1930-60

Abstract

The middle of the twentieth-century saw an unprecedented mass relocation of medical practitioners – through forced migration, military service, and as economic migrants. Between 1930-60, over three thousand medical migrants – that is, overseas-trained medical graduates – are known to have arrived in Australia. Their arrival was transformative as they challenged longstanding Australian legislative structures, and came to occupy critical gaps in local medical manpower. However, medical migrants in Australia are understudied. My research begins to redress what historians have called the ‘conspicuous silence’ or ‘collective amnesia’ that characterises nation-centric medical histories, where medi..