Greetings from the UK

[Purple Haze]

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Hello fellow rehabists

I have been lurking for sometime as I really enjoy your forum. I thought I would just to tell you a bit about British and Euro Rehab. The world is a small village and may be you would fancy spending sometime practicing around here.

The speciality is called Rehabilitation Medicine in the UK. There are only about 130 specialists (consultants) for more than 60 Million so you can do the math. The practice is either neurorehab or prosthetics with almost non-existent MSK component because of the way the speciality developed in here.

Our training programme is 4 years following the membership of the Royal College exam (So you have to do about 4 years medicine to get in the rehab world). There is no exit exam but this will change within 2-3 years.

Rehab (PMR) is called Physical and rehabilitation medicine in Europe. It is big in countries like Germany and Spain. Scandinavia is very well developed and probably they were the ones that kicked off the speciality in Europe. However, we pride ourselves that Spinal injuries is a British invention.

There is reciprocal recognition of medical dgrees in Europe so we can practice anywhere (if you speak the language!). There is an exam called European Board for PRM. Check this website for 2 previous exam papers (bottom of page):

http://www.euro-prm.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=17&Itemid=275&lang=en

Our big Journals are JRM and clinical rehabilitation

http://www.medicaljournals.se/jrm/

http://cre.sagepub.com/

Other journals are European journal of PRM, Disability and rehabilitation and Annal of PRM (please Google)


The main big events nationally is the British Society for Rehab Medicine meetings

www.bsrm.co.uk

Internationally, The european congress of PMR and the ISPRM meetings are usually the highlights of the rehab calendar

http://www.isprm.org/

http://www.esprm.net/

It is difficult to find good European books in rehab so trainees usually get the Board review or De Lisa as a reference. There are few nice smallish books such as


http://www.amazon.co.uk/Handbook-Cl...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313833419&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Studies-Neurological-Rehabilitation-Tarek-Gaber/dp/0521697166/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1313833374&sr=8-1

But my favourite is

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Cognitive-A...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1313833463&sr=1-1

So as you can see because there is no exit exam so far, trainees often use smallish books to build up their knowledge

The health service is centralised here so usually you work for the National Health Service with a sallary of around £100 000 (around $ 160 000). It may be less than you get in North America but the jobs are very secure and very enjoyable.

I am sorry for the long e-mail. I thought you may enjoy a crash course in Euro Rehab. Please do not hesitate to ask for any more info

 

[fozzy40]

Thank you very much!

 

[kstarm]

Very interesting! Thanks a lot for posting.

 

[jayel]

Sorry about bumping an old topic, but what hoops does a board certified and licensed PM&R doctor have to jump through to practice in the UK or in continental Europe? Thanks.

 

[lejeunesage]

Cool! Thanks for posting.