Olga Kurek-Ochmańska

In Poland, on average, there are 2.4 doctors per 1,000 population (Eurostat 2020), and thus Poland ranks last in the European Union in terms of the number of doctors per capita (OECD 2019). The data on the number of nurses and midwives look similarly unfavourable. This problem seems to be highly pressing in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 epidemiological crisis, which additionally exposed staff shortages in Polish health care and somehow “forced” the authorities to take action to fill these gaps with the help of foreign medics. The emergence of such a category of migrants may arouse contradictory emotions as, despite the obvious need to employ them, the attitude towards newcomers currently polarises Polish society. The aim of this article is to analyse the media representations of highly qualified migrant medics (doctors and nurses) who decided to live and work in Poland. The article explains how the media coverage creates the image of various groups of highly qualified medical migrants in Poland and what factors influence this image. The analysis results show that the image of foreign doctors has not yet been sufficiently recorded in the media, but with the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic there has been a growing interest in this issue. However, the migration of workers in the medical sector is analysed mainly in the context of staff shortages in the health service, and the descriptions are usually not accompanied by strong emotions towards migrants.

The article presents research experiences from a qualitative project concerning foreign-born academics in Poland, constituting one category of highly skilled migrants. It describes consecutive stages of the research process, problematizing methodological issues such as using the onomastic method and languages other than Polish, as well as not stigmatizing minority groups. In every part we make recommendations about possible decisions in further research projects.