From positive to negative discrimination: the situation of doctors of foreign origin in interwar Czechoslovakia (on the example of Russian doctors)
Abstract
As a result of Masaryk's "Russian Aid Action" in Czechoslovakia, thousands of Russian refugees, some of whom had the opportunity to get higher education or complete the started training. We will be interested in Russian immigrants who received medical education in Czechoslovakia but often did not who had the opportunity to realize themselves as doctors for several reasons.
The condition for admission to study was the signing by them of the so-called "refusal" the opportunity to work on the territory of Czechoslovakia after receiving a diploma. The second reason is the long-term opposition of the Czechoslovak Medical Chamber for training foreigners and employment of foreigners by obtaining special permission from the Ministry of Health to bypass the "refusal".
Local doctors felt injustice and even excessive liberalism in this. The situation for Russian doctors aggravated the economic crisis of 1929 and the adoption of Law No. 114/1929 on medical practice.
In addition, the Czechoslovak Medical Chamber in the 1935 year adopted a decree on the use of health insurance funds, which restricted doctors of foreign origin, even those who by this time were already citizens of Czechoslovakia. We will consider, how Russian doctors were looking for a way out of this situation (they left Czechoslovakia, took places on the periphery, most often in Subcarpathian Rus) and tried to fight for their rights (created the Union of Russian Doctors-Citizens of Czechoslovakia and published the magazine "Russian doctor in the CSR").