Almost a third of medical students left Ireland after graduating

Male Irish medicine graduates in 2013 earned €26 per week more than female graduates one year after graduation. After 10 years, this rose to €790 a week.

Almost a third of medicine graduates in 2013 left Ireland after graduating, and less than half came back within a decade, new research has suggested.

A new publication from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) has found that 37% of nursing and midwifery graduates from the same year also emigrated, but over three in five (62%) returned.

However, the CSO also said that a large majority of graduates were working in that same field 10 years on in the Irish healthcare system, with 95% of 2012 medicine graduates who completed the last Census in 2022 working as medical practitioners.

“This release measures health graduates’ international mobility, sector of employment, and earnings in the decade after their graduation,” statistician Brian Stanley said.

“Of all Irish nursing and midwifery graduates who graduated in 2013, 37% were ‘not captured’ in the administrative records for at least one year in the 10 years since they graduated. While it is assumed that graduates who were ‘not captured’ have emigrated, there is no definitive indicator of emigration available.” 

Salaries

The research also found substantial differences between how much male and female graduates were earning even within a year of graduating.

Male Irish nursing and midwifery graduates from 2013 were earning €30 per week more than female graduates after a year.

After 10 years, men were earning €219 more a week, adding up to more than €10,000 more a year.

It was even more pronounced for medicine graduates. Male Irish medicine graduates in 2013 earned €26 per week more than female graduates one year after graduation. After 10 years, this rose to €790 a week.

Seven in 10 graduates were working in the public sector, with the remaining in the private sector, 10 years on.

The total number of medicine graduates of all nationalities increased from 783 in 2010 to 1,254 in 2022. The number of Irish medicine graduates increased from 327 in 2010 to 636 in 2022.

In 2022, the most recent year for which figures are available, women outnumber men across all healthcare disciplines in terms of graduates.

Only 5.4% of speech and language therapy graduates in 2022 were male.

Mr Stanley added: “We can also see that the region where most Irish nursing and midwifery graduates worked as of 2022 was the HSE Dublin & North East region, with 1,506 of those who graduated between 2010 and 2017 working there.

“The region where the fewest Irish nursing and midwifery graduates worked in 2022 was the HSE Midwest region, with 603 of those who graduated between 2010 and 2017 working there.” 

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In recent years, surveys compiled by groups such as the Irish Nurses and Midwives Organisation suggest large numbers of intern nurses and midwives were considering emigrating when they qualify.

During the summer, the Government announced a significant expansion in training places for health and social care professions with higher education minister James Lawless saying that he was looking at “postgraduate programmes, further education models, and apprenticeship-style routes to grow the pipeline of healthcare and therapy professionals”.