Almost a third of newly qualified doctors from Irish universities move abroad in the years after they finish their studies with fewer than half returning within 10 years, new figures from the Central Statistics Office suggest. The statistics do not take account of the significant proportion of medical students attending Irish universities who are from overseas to begin with. [ How rewarding is a degree in medicine?Opens in new window ]A majority of nurses registering for the first time in Ireland in recent years qualified abroad. Irish graduates of all medical disciplines are routinely the targets of recruitment campaigns in other locations such as Australia. Seventy per cent of nurses/midwives and 71 per cent of doctors who qualified in 2013 were employed within the public health service 10 years later, the figures indicate.
