13. September 2024.
Dorja Sabljak, a doctor of medicine from Croatia, moved to the Swedish city Umeå in February 2024 with her partner, also a doctor of medicine.
Umeå is the 12th largest city in Sweden and a center of education and technical and medical research in Sweden, with two universities and over 30,000 students.
Find out how Dr. Sabljak is managing there and what she experienced so far.
“I finished university hoping that I’ll stay in the country,” says Dr. Sabljak. “It was summer, I just got my license, and I was the first generation of doctors who got to choose whether they wanted to specialize right after school or work with a mentor for a while. I started working with a mentor.”
Dr. Sabljak believes that medicine is a craft and not just art, and that you sometimes can’t learn everything from books. She wanted to master it through the experience, knowledge, and methods of older “craftsmen.”
However, she soon realized that her mentor wasn’t motivated to educate her, and that even the financial incentive couldn’t fix it.
That’s when she turned toward Sweden – a country where her partner already had many friends.
They compared the experiences of young doctors from Croatia and Sweden and decided where they’d build their future. To do so, though, they needed to know the language.
Dr. Sabljak wasn’t sure how she’d coordinate learning Swedish with her job in emergency medicine, rehabilitation after a knee injury, moving out of the country… But, as she says, “that’s where Zrinka comes in.”
“I was looking for ways to learn the language online, and I stumbled upon Zrinka’s Swedish School. I watched the first video (but for the wrong level) and didn’t understand a thing, but I immediately liked the atmosphere that Zrinka creates.”
She was curious. She thought that this could be a fast and fun way to learn the language.
“I think I contacted Zrinka the very next week. She is available via email, WhatsApp, and Viber practically 24/7. No one knows when that woman sleeps,” says Dr. Sabljak.
She completed the A1-C1 levels of Swedish with Zrinka, and was ready to take the next step.
Since 2021, a requirement for getting specialist training in Sweden is to complete a compulsory internship for doctors who studied outside of Sweden.
Twice a year, every region in Sweden offers BT (bastjänstgöring) – basic residential training for foreign doctors who got their degrees in the EU and want to work in the Swedish healthcare system.
Dr. Sabljak needed some time to gather information about BT since she didn’t know a lot of people who had already completed their specialist training in Sweden. Today, however, she is quite familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of BT.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
With enough spots only for a limited number of doctors, and too many of them wanting to specialize in Sweden, Dr. Sabljak needed to increase her chances of getting the training. That’s why she applied for a summer job.
“I applied as a summer doctor for cardiology in a hospital where I wanted to do my BT. This increases the chances of that happening since getting references from the same hospital and showing a desire to stay in the same city gives you an advantage.”
Her summer job consisted of working in cardiology, which included the department, intensive care, day hospital, PCI lab, and Arrhythmia lab work.
“I was also on duty in the emergency internal medicine. So far, I’m very happy with the knowledge I gained,” says Dr. Sabljak. “The triage is much better. Since specialized medical nurses can correct the therapy and solve some chronic disease-related issues, doctors can focus on more complicated cases that require more knowledge and experience.”
As an on-duty doctor, she always had the option of calling the central service if she needed any help or to consult someone. She says that everyone was always ready to help and kind. And vice versa was also true; she sometimes needed to contact on-duty doctors herself. Even if it was at 3 AM, she never had a negative experience.
“It’s a system purposely designed so that everything initially goes to the least experienced doctor, allowing him to learn something new with each patient. So, if it’s an exceptionally complicated patient, they still want all younger doctors to be directly involved and learn from it.”
When it comes to the workplace atmosphere, Dr. Sabljak says she has a 1-hour lunch break every day. Someone always invites others to “fika” approximately once a week, so everyone drinks coffee and eats cake together.
“One time during our lunch break, we even went swimming in a nearby river,” she says. “Every day, you can expect everyone to say thank you for today, you did good, and see you tomorrow. They’ll invite you for a drink after work or a marathon in the fall. According to my experience, the Swedes are not cold.”
Dr. Sabljak says that “medicine students in Sweden can work during the summer at the department together with doctors in training, resident doctors, and college professors, and be handsomely paid for it.”
What does that mean? Well, students have a right to work and study after they complete term 9 (internal medicine) at the hospital with older colleagues.
“I found it beautiful to see a doctor, a college professor, having a coffee at a balcony with a student on her last day of summer work and giving her advice on choosing her specialist training.”
She says that’s one of the main differences between the Croatian and the Swedish systems. “How many of our students got the opportunity to be at the department they wanted as an equal team member, be nicely compensated for it, and drink coffee with professors willing to give advice? Not many…”
Finally, here’s what Dr. Sabljak had to say about Zrinka’s Swedish School:
“When I arrived in Sweden, everyone complimented my language skills and asked me where I studied. Zrinka taught me not just the language, but also the culture, so I was immediately accepted as ‘one of theirs.’ With language, the most important thing is that learning is fun. We had so much fun during our classes and zero stress. For me, my classes were a time when I would make coffee and talk to Zrinka, Olga, Kristina, or other “students” about what we did that week. When I look back, it’s unbelievable how everything changed in those 2 years, and how I suddenly speak a new language and work in medicine in a different language. I think that’s wonderful, and it makes me happy.”
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Dr. Sabljak is one of many healthcare workers who we helped realize their dreams about working and living abroad. Find more reviews from our candidates here!
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