Ethical international recruitment

In the October 2004 issue of International Psychiatry (no. 6), we published special papers on the recruitment of consultant psychiatrists from low- and middle-income countries. The case for such recruitment was made by Catherine Jenkins, the NHS International Fellowships Project Manager at the Department of Health, and the case against was made by David Ndetei, Salman Karim and Malik Mubbashar. Not surprisingly, because of the role played by the College in facilitating this ‘brain drain’, there have been many responses – mostly supporting the views of the latter authors. Because of the importance of the topic, and the intense feelings aroused by the policy among psychiatrists in the developing world, we are pursuing the subject in January 2005. We publish here two articles written by eminent psychiatrists who provide a perspective on the issue from outside the UK, and a response from Gareth Holsgrove, Medical Education Adviser at the College.