The Health bulletin [serial] - University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

ers, 4400 nurses, 4200 engineers and
1200 physicians—equivalent to 40 per-
cent of that year's graduates—emigrat-
ed. But sympathy for the nation's
plight is tempered by the fact that in
the same year, Britian acquired 3300
teachers, 1600 engnieers, 1300 nurses
and 300 physicians from less privileged
nations. A startling 40 percent of the
medical personnel serving in the British
National Health Service came from
such areas as Pakistan, India and the
West Indies.
Similarly, France has received more
professors and physicians from her
former colony, the new African nation
of Togo, than she has sent to that
country. France also provides employment
to an estimated 3500 university-
trained South Vietnamese, who are
desperately needed in their own hard-
pressed nation. To compensate for the
flight of their own technologists, the
nations of Western Europe employ more
scientists and engineers from Turkey
and the Arab nations than do their own
countries. And Canada, which lost 920
engineers to the United States in 1964,
admitted 2000 from abroad that year,
including many hired sight unseen
from Spain and Argentina.
Skimming the Cream. More signific-
ant than the quantity is the quality of
the professionals who migrate. "Every
country is short of the brightest people
because God didn't make enough," says
Harry S. Hoff, consultant to the United
Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. But
it is these very people who are lured
away.
British science will not easily re-
place 38-year-old medical reseacher
Ian Bush, who in 1964 left for the
Worcester (Mass.) Foundation for Med-
ical Research with his entire staff of
scientists and technicians. The Japanese
electronic industry suffered an equally
severe setback when Dr. Leo Esaki,
developer of electronic devices used
throughout the world, took a job with
a U.S. firm.
April, 1967 THE HEALTH BULLETIN
No nation can afford the continual
loss of its most brilliant and productive
minds without suffering severe economic
consequences. The effect of such
loss on the less developed countries
amounts to "a national catastrophe," in
the words of Charles V. Kidd, President
Johnson's scientific adviser. Many of the
nations of the world are so short of
trained manpower that a university department
may be forced to close when
a professor leaves, children go untaught
when a teacher moves, and thousands
be deprived of medical atention when
a physician migrates. Further, in emerg-
ing nations the professionals contitute
that sliver of the population which pro-
vides leadership. They are the catalytic
agents for improvement without whom
the nation stagnates.
Farewell With Regret. A major moti-
vation in the flight of talent is the
desire for an adequate income. "The
scientist is enabled to study thanks to
the efforts of all his countrymen— farm-
ers, laborers and intellectuals alike,"
Bernardo Houssay, Nobel Prize-winning
biologist, reminded his fellow Argen-
tinians. "He owes it to them to repay
that debt." But the 206 scientists who
left Argentina last year—some of whom
earned less than $2000 annually— felt
they could not afford to heed his plea.
An Italian mfcrobiologist at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology wrote
his sponsors in anguish to explain why
he was breaking his promise to return
home: "I do not expect to live in
luxury, but at 32, with two degrees, !
cannot live even decently on the $290
a month offered me in Italy." "I love
Britain, and would like to stay," was
the comment of a 40-year-old heart
surgeon to official pleas that he remain.
"But Britain won't afford to keep me."