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After completing my residency at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in 2019, I moved from cultural highlight Amsterdam to the beautiful coast line of Aarhus. My main motivation was a professional opportunity at the Danish Center for Particle Therapy. Here, I currently hold a combined clinical-researcher position. Easier said than done.

After realising a clinical position abroad, which can come with many barriers, there are supportive circumstances and those that make it more challenging to work as a foreign clinician. On top of changing departments, one can encounter more profound differences in for example the health care system, educational system, and organisation of and responsibilities in patient care.

In this talk, I will touch upon circumstances that support working abroad as a clinician, and those that make it more challenging. I will focus on the phase when one is actually working abroad, thus after realising a position and moving. My personal experience, as well as others’, will form the basis of this talk/case-study. I will acknowledge that ones’ experiences will depend on personal, professional, and societal factors, for example the phase of ones’ career and inclusivity of the new country of foreign doctors.

Altogether, being a radiation oncologist does not mean the exact same thing in different countries. I am privileged to have this opportunity and to share my experiences in this talk.