This doctor trio is assisting youngsters to gain entry into Germany’s healthcare jobs through their Minibo Enterprises Pvt Ltd.Dr Mitha along with her two friends Dr Nijesh Menon and Dr Bobby Abraham founded Minibo Enterprises
KOCHI:Dr Mitha Mathai Muthirenthi, who’s working as a doctor in Bonn, Germany since 2008, is witness to several instances where job aspirants from India, especially Kerala, for doctor and nursing profession in this fastest growing G7 economy.
What struck her was the reality that job applicants are failing not due to lack of professional skills but due to their failure in the German language proficiency test. “I’ve seen many from India struggling to get a job in the healthcare industry as they have no clue about the procedures here,” said Dr Mitha, over the phone from Bonn.
Now, Dr Mitha along with two of her friends from the 1996 batch of Kottayam Medical College -- Dr Nijesh Menon and Dr Bobby Abraham, doctors in Bahrain and Muscat respectively -- have founded ‘Minibo Enterprises Pvt Ltd in Kochi, to train prospective applicants for jobs in medical language skills in German. The name ‘Minibo’ comes from the first two alphabets of the names of the three founders.
The German language courses is conducted through ‘Minibo German Residential Institute’.
Mitha points out that the opportunities for nurses and doctors are huge in Germany.
As per a recent report, by 2030, Germany could be missing up to three million skilled workers, among them technical and medical workers. The imminent shortage is due to the country’s aging population resulting in a sharp fall in the number of working-age population.
There are several firms that offer German language training in India, but most of them misguide the job applicants on the level of language skill. For instance, you’ll need medical German C1 level for doctors but most of the candidates come with B2 level and try to get the C1 level after reaching Germany, which is both time consuming and increases the cost.
“Doctors are in high demand here. Usual courses teach you just essentials to pass the B2 level. But many do fail in interviews for training posts because of the lack of communication skills. With this residential course, we hope to make your communication skills at par to pass any training interviews. Also special training by working German doctors to face interviews with ease, she says.
Thomas P Thomas, CEO of Minibo Enterprises, says the USP of Minibo Enterprises is its faculty and the facility provided by the firm to interact with native Germans through Skype. The faculty includes Annie Kurien, former Head of Department of Foreign Languages, Cusat and former interpreter of German and English at MEA, New Delhi; and Prof A Achyuta Menon, retd. HOD - Professor of German Language, Linguistics and Literature, Department of English & Foreign Languages, Cusat with 37 years of teaching experience.
Thomas informs that Minibo will also assist the job applicants from its institute in finding a place of accommodation and other facilities in Germany.“It’s a special complete package whereby we bear the
expenditure of doctor candidates until they pass through interviews for doctors training post. Minibo will also give guidance for a planned entry to Germany,interviews and job search,” he says.
The course for the new batch, which began from March 1, is for a duration of 8 months (5 hours per day, a total of 850 hours). The course fee is Rs 1 lakh, but for the first batch, there will be a special fee of R33,000 per student.
How the minibo group came together
Minibo is a venture initiated by three professional doctors who reunited after two decades of their health field academia.
Practicing medical profession in various corners of the world, they reunited to float a start-up Minibo Enterprises.
Alumni of 96 batch Kottayam medicos, these doctors also have two more business ventures viz., Minobo Foods and Minibo Tours & Travels.