Procedure for recognition

The application for a professional license and the application for an approbation are interconnected.

The professional license is issued after the documents have been reviewed. This usually takes about 2-4 weeks. However, it is only valid in the federal state in which the application was submitted and has a limited validity of 2 years. With the professional license, exercise of the medical profession is only possible under the supervision of a licensed physician.

In the procedure for obtaining the approbation, a distinction is made between EU-/EEA-countries and Non-EU countries. In the case of EU-countries, automatic recognition is possible if the degree was obtained after the country of origin joined the EU.

In all other cases there is no automatic recognition.

In the equivalence assessment, the educational contents and work experience are audited in regards to their equivalence to the training in Germany. It takes 5-6 months for the expert opinion to be issued. Detailed evidence of training contents and work experience must be provided (e.g. curriculum, work references).

Usually all documents require official certification - the authenticity declarations from some countries are not recognized (e.g. Azerbaijan, Egypt, Syria). This is an official confirmation that a copy is identical to the original document. The confirmation is made by a public authority (administrative office) or a notary.

In addition, every physician who applies for an approbation or a professional permit and who cannot prove that he or she has the required knowledge of the German language for medical practice must take a professional language exam. After the application for the approbation/professional license, the responsible state or district government declares whether a professional language exam is necessary. If this is the case, the state or district government contacts the responsible medical association and sends in the required documents.

In the professional language exam, a conversation and documentation situations are simulated. The focus of the exam is to test listening comprehension, as well as oral and written language skills. In this context, specialist medical knowledge is not assessed.

However, knowledge testing examines whether the specialist knowledge of foreign physicians is comparable with German standards. The contents of the German course of study are used as reference. The focus of the knowledge test is on the subjects of internal medicine and surgery. In addition, knowledge of emergency medicine, clinical pharmacology/pharmacotherapy, imaging procedures, radiation protection or legal issues of medical practice are tested.