Foreign dentists working in China?

[Upperad]

Hello!

 

I'm an experienced European dentist who is looking to move to China. I don't speak Mandarin yet, but will start learning soon, I'm a quick learner with a gift for languages, so learning Mandarin is a huge part of my wanting to move to China. But because of my not knowing Mandarin yet, I'm aiming to get a job at a chain who also offers services for expats. 

 

Are there any other foreign dentists working in China here that would give me some pointers? How did you get your job and what qualifications did you have? How did you go about finding a job?

 

I already got WeChat up and running, and can start contacting HR people on there, but I'm afraid of misstepping.

 

Any information would be welcome.

 

Thanks in advance!

[vellocet]

Well, at this point I would ask the motivations for such a radical change, but I will assume you have them and instead attempt to  answer the actual question.  This is a curveball so I will tell you how I would do it.  I don't know a foreign dentist and never have.  Wanting to work in a chain that offers services to expats limits you to Beijing, Shanghai,  Guangzhou, Tianjin, or possibly Suzhou or Hangzhou. Assuming you have the time,2-3 weeks I guess,  I would schedule a trip to China to visit these cities and just walk in to the major dentistry practices you find there and talk to them. You will find their advertisements in all the usual publications that cater to expats.  Do all the touristy stuff to get it out of the way and get a feel for each town, they are all very different. You can get a taste of "the life" as well as make some contacts you will use later. Ask them what they would do  in your place. The internet is great but there is no substitute for the face-to-face meeting and especially the personal recommendation. 

Besides the usual internet searches you could try searching on Baidu.com in English or use an auto- translator. 

[honglam]

My brother is a medical student so I asked him about how to become a dentist in China. Here is my summary of his answer.

On 8/5/2024 at 3:30 PM, Upperad said:

I'm an experienced European dentist who is looking to move to China.

Officially, in Chinese Mainland(I'll simply use China for short below), the term "stomatologist" rather than "dentist" is used, so the knowledge and skill required in China may be different from other countries. Basically, you have to pass the license examination to get a license of stomatologist in China. According to the law, you have to submit your degree of dentistry to the National Health Commission(NHC) when registering for this license examination. I guess you didn't receive your degree of dentistry from a Chinese University so you should apply for an accreditation of your degree at Chinese Service Center for Scholarly Exchange(CSCSE) before registering for the exam. 

Yet an accreditation from the CSCSE doesn't means you are qualified to take the exam. Only when your CSCSE-accredited degree is acknowledged by the NHC could you register for the exam with this degree. NHC won't deal with those foreign degrees without CSCSE-accreditation at all.

Seldom could we see people working as a dentist in China with a foreign degree of dentistry, even if she/he is a Chinese, so hardly any advice could my medical doctor friends give on the actual procedure. As far as I'm concerned, you can register for the test with an NHC-acknowledged bachelor in stomatology AND a certification of one year of internship in a NHC-accredited Chinese hospital. Or you can register for the test with merely an NHC-acknowledged professional master/doctor in stomatology. These are quite easy to get for those receiving medical degrees from Chinese universities. But how these procedures are done for foreigners like you, nobody knows. You should contact the National Medical Examination Center(NMEC) for further details. I've find their email address on their official website so you can ask them directly: nmeczhc@163.com. Or you can contact the NHC for information. But I'm not sure whether they would deal with messages in English or not.

On 8/5/2024 at 3:30 PM, Upperad said:

I don't speak Mandarin yet, but will start learning soon, I'm a quick learner with a gift for languages, so learning Mandarin is a huge part of my wanting to move to China. But because of my not knowing Mandarin yet, I'm aiming to get a job at a chain who also offers services for expats. 

Well, I'm afraid you have to become an expert in Chinese first. In Chinese hospitals, the working language is Chinese(almost merely in Chinese my brother said). That means you should finish every medical record in Chinese(after all, Chinese is the official language of China). That means you must have a vast knowledge of medical terminology in Chinese first. Meanwhile the license exam mentioned above is conducted in Chinese as well. So you would have to deal with multiple choices completely written in Chinese in the paper exam, and finish the communication part of history taking, physical examination and basic dentist skills in the skill test in Mandarin.

BTW my brother said that the education of dentist in China and in other countries may be different. In China, stomatologists are required to have a basic knowledge of Internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, obstetrics, pediatrics and infectious diseases as well, so you have to learn these things thoroughly if you are looking forward to working a dentist in China for long term.(luckily there are guidebooks and exercise books for the exam. Written in Chinese, too)

After all, it's really difficult to settle down in China without both relatives living in China and a knowledge of Chinese. Not only mandarin, sometimes you have to deal with the local accents and dialects as well. If I speak Shanghainese to my friends in Beijing, nobody would understand what I said.

 

As for details of foreigners' finding job or getting a visa, I know little about that. Maybe you should direct contact with the National Immigration Administration of PRC then.

[Upperad]

On 8/6/2024 at 5:28 AM, vellocet said:

I would schedule a trip to China to visit these cities and just walk in to the major dentistry practices you find there and talk to them. You will find their advertisements in all the usual publications that cater to expats. 

 

This is all very valuable advice, thanks! Yeah, one of my options (and I think the most realistic RN) is to make a trip to China for some intensive Mandarin lessons and work the field afterwards. I totally agree with you, in person contact always beats online, but I also am afraid of being too imposing by approaching people out of nowhere in person. We’ll see! What are the publications that usually cater to expats? Maybe I can find some info on those already if they have online versions.

[vellocet]

I'm skeptical of bro's reply above, it can't be that  difficult because China clears the way for foreign experts  with advanced qualifications of Ph.D. and above.  You won't be working at a Chinese hospital, anyway. Dentistry is done through private clinics, never seen a dentist at a hospital. I agree  dentistry is called stomatology here. If you're going to work in an expat clinic everything will be in English and you'll have a bilingual assistant for  the Chinese stuff. It's good you're fast with languages because Chinese is just as difficult as you've heard it is.  You won't need Chinese to get a job, though. I know an M.D. who has lived here for ages and doesn't speak more than 100 words and she has no trouble attracting job offers. 

Well, you always need an "in" to get those all-valuable personal referrals that rule China. Don't worry about being forward, if people give you the cold shoulder or don't speak English (most educated people do these days) then just go elsewhere. Or try your own idea, I'm just saying what I would do if I had no relationships with anyone. Someone somewhere will be happy to pass around a foreign dentist who wants to work in China. Foreign professionals are like a good house painter or a good plumber, when people find one they refer them to their friends. 

Another idea, talk to a dentistry university  in one of the cities I mentioned above and ask them if they know how to place you somewhere.  Send enough emails and someone will reply.  China is graduating lots of foreigners with medical degrees, at least around here. The idea being they'll go back home and provide China with soft power later in their  careers, but since after they graduate they qualify for a position in China lots of them just stay, LOL.  You could always just sign up for a 6 month  fulltime Chinese course in one of the big cities, get a student's resident permit and get the lay of the land that way.  

[Upperad]

On 8/6/2024 at 11:00 AM, honglam said:

Officially, in Chinese Mainland(I'll simply use China for short below), the term "stomatologist" rather than "dentist"

Thanks for all the valuable information! I'm also familiar with that system, in Spain dentists also used to be stomatologists until the degree became an individual one and not a specialisation inside medicine. Cheers! 

[Upperad]

On 8/8/2024 at 6:23 AM, vellocet said:

China clears the way for foreign experts  with advanced qualifications of Ph.D. and above

Thanks for the encouraging message! It does give me a lot of hope. I'm not a PhD but I have two Masters Degrees a ton of experience, plus a nice portfolio. And I am already that good dentist that attracts a lot of F&F, most of my patients are referrals from loved ones (Just to say, and not to toot my own horn, I am very good at what I do, both in the humane and the technical aspects of the job). Hope that will do the trick? We will see. But yeah, the plan is definitely shaping up to be some temporary relocation to China to learn Chinese and do some hustling there. Nothing wrong with that plan at all! Only that I need to save a lot of money 🥴 In the meantime I will try to get in touch with HR personnel, I am just afraid that if I get in touch with X HR manager from Y dental chain and blow it up (why would I, that's the question), that I end up screwing up my chances to work at Y dental chain who has a lot of expat practices. So I'm trying to be cautious while at the same time not letting that fear stop me. Anyway, thank you so so much again for your replies! 

[zhouhaochen]

There are many foreign dentists working in China and you probably will do pretty well. You probably want to stick to Beijing or Shanghai though. I would travel there and visit the main foreign dental chains (there are only about 3-4 in each city) and talk to them directly. You are pretty likely to get a job.

If you want to learn Mandarin, thats very different to being a dentist though. The foreign dentists I know in Beijing dont speak a word of Chinese after 20+ years though.

 

 

 

[Magelita]

On 8/5/2024 at 7:30 PM, Upperad said:

But because of my not knowing Mandarin yet,

Mandarin is one of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers. Don't underestimate it, even if you are gifted in languages. The most difficult aspect is learning the characters and reading actual, real texts, not abridged or ones from text books. I thought that the tones would be the most challenging, but found that was not the case for me at least. Also, the grammar is not difficult but there are ways to express grammar states by particles which don't map one on one onto our conjugations, for example. For conversational Mandarin only the bar is lower (and you would be functionally illiterate because characters are everywhere) , but if you are interested in becoming proficient it is a years long process and preferably with immersion in China, which you are planning to do anyway. I would think that most of us who have studied Mandarin and gained some amount of proficiency, have found that it a never ending process; there is always more to learn. Especially when learning more about the culture and history. It is very rewarding however!

 

Re recognition of degrees, even in the Western world that is not so easy to do. For example, I live in New Zealand and here professional degrees (law, medicine, dentistry, accountancy, psychology etc) from overseas have to be scrutinised and you have to sit  certain exams and have a period of supervision before they can be recognised. China would be much harder. I would think that even if you would work in an expat environment it would be important to find out whether you could legally work as a dentist with your existing qualifications. 

 

These are my thoughts. There are people on the forum here who might know more. The advice to go to China and scout it out is good advice. (I knew someone who had ideas of having a professional career with China and then discovered that they did not like and could not adjust to the country and culture when they were on a language course there.)

 

I wish you best of luck investigating your options.

[Upperad]

On 8/8/2024 at 9:24 AM, zhouhaochen said:

The foreign dentists I know in Beijing dont speak a word of Chinese after 20+ years though.

 

That is a shame! Actually, one of the main reasons I want to move to China is to learn Mandarin! I could not fathom living in a country where I cannot understand what the signs on the street say. Blows my mind.

 

The thing I am debating rn is to get in touch with those chains now, or rather learn a bit of Mandarin, go there on an intensive course and get the lay of the land once there.

 

Please, since you know foreign dentists, could ask them directly if they needed to test for qualifications and degree, and if so, what was the path they followed? Maybe you're not so close with them, so in that case, no need of course, but just a little string to tug from in that aspect would be highly appreciated. 

 

Thanks!

[Upperad]

On 8/8/2024 at 10:30 AM, Magelita said:

Mandarin is one of the most difficult languages to learn for English speakers. Don't underestimate it, even if you are gifted in languages. The most difficult aspect is learning the characters and reading actual, real texts, not abridged or ones from text books. I thought that the tones would be the most challenging, but found that was not the case for me at least. Also, the grammar is not difficult but there are ways to express grammar states by particles which don't map one on one onto our conjugations, for example. For conversational Mandarin only the bar is lower (and you would be functionally illiterate because characters are everywhere) , but if you are interested in becoming proficient it is a years long process and preferably with immersion in China, which you are planning to do anyway. I would think that most of us who have studied Mandarin and gained some amount of proficiency, have found that it a never ending process; there is always more to learn. Especially when learning more about the culture and history. It is very rewarding however!

 

This only makes me all the more excited to learn it, and it's actually getting to learn Mandarin one of the things (if not THE thing) that makes me want to move. I will, in any case, travel to China at some point or another, in some capacity or another next year. I'm a very, very adaptable and flexible person who can find their place anywhere. None of this makes me scared or wary at all, I've already moved countries and learned new languages in record time in my adult years. And that was a process that I enjoyed enormously, full of discovery and wonder, and that's what's bringing me to China, because now I want to do it in Beast Mode. And hey, if it doesn't click, I can always move back. Right? 

 

The thing that raises the most questions right now would be is the validation of my degree. I do get a lot of contradicting advice about that, but I will keep on investigating!

 

Thanks for your reply

[Lu]

On 8/8/2024 at 11:56 AM, Upperad said:

The thing I am debating rn is to get in touch with those chains now, or rather learn a bit of Mandarin, go there on an intensive course and get the lay of the land once there.

What are your goals, or what is your main goal? And what does your availability look like? If you're working as a dentist at the moment, I assume you need to plan any holidays a long time in advance. In that case, I'd say you should just start learning Chinese asap, since that is something you want to do and something you can already get started with.

 

If your main goal is moving to China, I'd also try and make some connections with foreign dentists in China and travel there for 2-3 weeks as soon as you can to talk to them. That would give you a clearer idea on what the next steps would be.

 

Have you found some foreign dentist practices or hospitals with dentists yet? Perhaps they have vacancies (either new or already filled) and you can look at what their requirements are?

[Jan Finster]

Personally, I would not go to China with HSK 0. If you really want to learn Chinese, what is stopping you from self-studying to at least HSK 4 in your home country? You can easily do this in one year. This will give you a head start and tests your real motivation. 

 

Otherwise it is a bit like moving to  Japan to live in a Zen monastery without ever having meditated at least 10 minutes before. 

 

I do not want to spoil it for you, but I have met plenty of people who made impulsive decisions only to later regret it. 

 

[honglam]

On 8/8/2024 at 4:30 PM, Magelita said:

China would be much harder.

That's what I've mentioned above since the license exams are conducted completely in Chinese, especially Chinese for professional uses. That's a different world compared with the Chinese taught from HSK1 to HSK6 because these tests don't really focus on a certain vocation but a basis of everyday Chinese in communication. We have foreign student studying medicine in the same university with me and I know some of them well(partly because I've joined a project helping them with Chinese). There are taught mainly in Chinese but some of them are still not quite good at these academic expressions even though their are already sophomore.

And the license problem @Upperad, as I've mentioned above, my advice is that you'd better send a mail to the authorities. And I'll be pleased if I could help you in Chinese.

[zhouhaochen]

On 8/8/2024 at 5:56 PM, Upperad said:

The thing I am debating rn is to get in touch with those chains now, or rather learn a bit of Mandarin, go there on an intensive course and get the lay of the land once there.

Almost any person who works in China and does not speak Chinese I hear on a repeating basis "Oh I should have learned Mandarin when I first got here.". 

Once someone settled into an English speaking world in China it is much harder to get out of it.

Also, if one wants to learn Mandarin for living in China, learning it at the beginning (instead of the middle or end) makes the most sense to me.

In general learning Mandarin while working is very hard and not so many people make any meaningful progress. Most people I know (including myself) who speak Mandarin today, spent at least half a year of full time study in China.