Syrians rank first among foreign physicians in Germany

Syrian physicians in Germany ranked first among foreign doctors, as their number reached 6,120 doctors, most of whom came to the country with the start of the refugee wave in 2015. This number does not include doctors with German citizenship.

German media said that more than 60,000 foreign doctors live and work in Germany, most of whom come from Syria, Turkey and many European countries, including 4,596 Syrian doctors who work in German hospitals, and the rest work in outpatient clinics or in other forms of medicine.

Because of the shortage of doctors, experts expect more influx.

According to a media report, the number of foreign doctors has doubled in the past decade and reached 63,763 by the end of last year. Ten years ago there were about 30,000, and in 1993 there were about 10,000, as reported by the newspapers of the Funke Media Group, citing medical statistics issued by the German Medical Association.

First place

The German Zeit website said that most doctors who do not hold a German passport come from European Union countries or other European countries, as well as from Middle Eastern countries. The most important countries of origin are Syria (6120), Romania (4668), Austria (2993), Greece (2943), Russia (2941) and Turkey (2628).

The total number of doctors in Germany reached 557,528 doctors at the end of 2022. Thus, Syrian doctors come in first place in terms of number.

At the end of last year, 2023, there were 63,763 doctors, as reported by the newspapers of the Funke Media Group, citing statistics from the German Medical Association.

Accordingly, the number has doubled compared to 2013, when at that time it was about 30 thousand. In 1993 there were only about 10,000 foreign doctors.

This means: Of the total 421,000 doctors working in Germany, more than 14% of them come from another country.

While experts expect more foreign doctors, doctors' representatives warned of increasing problems due to poor knowledge of the German language among foreign colleagues.

language skills

“Insufficient language skills are already a big problem today,” Jürgen Hovaart, managing director of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Medical Association, told the newspapers of the Funke Media Group. “But it will get worse in the coming years because we will have more and more foreign doctors.”

According to Hovart, one reason is the shortage of doctors. In the future, the need for medical personnel cannot be met by students trained in German universities. Of the approximately 11,000 university graduates in Germany each year, a large percentage do not go to work.

Statistics published by the Statista Research Department a few days ago indicated that, as of February 2024, 14,024 people from Syria had applied for asylum in Germany.

This means that about 29.8% of all initial asylum applications were submitted by people holding Syrian nationality.

At the end of 2022, about 900,000 Syrians were living in Germany.

In total, about 50,000 asylum applications have been submitted in Germany so far in 2024 (number of asylum applications), and in addition to the 47,000 initial applications, a total of about 3,000 follow-up applications have been submitted.

Reporting by Faris Rifai