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American Hospital of Paris (2)
Before arrival 2
It was 1992 when I had a call from Shun, my buddy for 10 years since
residency days in US. He was then an assistant professor at Tokyo University,
School of Medicine, and was directing the Division ofInternational Medical
Affairs.
" Hey Tom, we received a request of recruit for a Japanese physician
from a hospital in Paris. The name of the hospital is the American Hospital
of Paris (AHP). They want a Japanese physician trained either in Internal
Medicine or Family Practice in U.S., and hopefully speaks some French.
This is exactly you, isn't it?"
It was too good to believe. My whole energy from that time on was consumed
with going to Paris. I started to brush up on my French at Aliance Francaise,
gathered information on Paris from my friends, asked the French Consulate
about the visa requirements, etc.
It was officially an open competition. Although there were several competitors,
I was selected finally without any serious problems. Soon after I received
an invitation to come to Paris for the interview. After a successful
interview I was told I could start the job as soon as I received the
working visa. No one could predict this visa issue would became so complicated.
A working visa for a physician is something special and usually takes
a long time to be issued. Many American and British doctors had been
working with their own national license at AHP due to a special law
(arrete) applying only to AHP. Therefore, everyone thought it would
be issued easily, if the CEO of AHP lobbied a little at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of France.
The visa was not issued 3 months later, not even 6 months later! We
finally found then that the real reason of the refusal of the visa was
" reciprocity". If a Japanese doctor can practice medicine in France
with Japanese license even at the privileged hospital like AHP, the
same right should be given to a French doctor in Japan. It is what the
reciprocity means. Now this visa issue became a diplomatic problem between
Japan and France. Finally it was resolved by giving Japanese medical
license to a French doctor living in Tokyo. It took one year for the
issuance of the visa since the application!
The fax saying " The visa problem is finally solved." was sent to my
apartment in Kobe on January 16, 1995 (a day before Kobe earthquake).
Several weeks later, I went to French Consulate General to receive the
visa. For me it was the visa which kept me waiting for one year. For
the person at the consulate it was just a visa. It took just one minute
to prepare the visa. I felt happiness with some bitterness then. As
soon as I went out of the consulate, I called the diplomat at the Ministry
of Foreign Affaires of Japan, who was so helpful to me. My satisfaction
became greater as I was listening his congratulatory comments.
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E-mail:kidot@momo.so-net.ne.jp