משמרות בשבת במהלך לימודי רפואה

I am twenty-nine years old, single, and living at home. I am as religiously observant as I can be and as I know. I have a Gemara havruta five times a week and I try to learn and to absorb as much Torah as much as time and ability permit. I am a medical doctor, specializing in radiology in South Africa. I have completed two out of four years of my training. Training here is limited and almost substandard due to a lack of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), which is very important, and a general lack of structured training and supervision (we have no department head) due to the general trend of emigration from South Africa for a variety of reasons (e.g., crime, uncertainty, etc.). The Jewish community is getting smaller!

My priorities, in order, are to get married and to complete my training.

I have a job offer in Birmingham (approximately seventy miles from London), England, starting this October after Sukkot. The radiology department there appears quite academic and efficient. They have training in MRI and have sufficient supervision. The course is five years long, during which one develops specific areas of interest. I would continue my training without losing any time there—that is, having completed two years of training in South Africa, I would enter into the third year.

I have no family in the U.K. but do have some in Paris, which is not too far away.

I would like to accept this post as I think that it would be good for my personal growth out of the home, and as well as for my training. However, Birmingham has only a small Jewish community and only two Orthodox shuls. The community consists of some local people and the students that attend Birmingham University. This means that there are not many eligible women, so I would only stay there for about six months, until I pass my final exams, which I could write in March of 1999. Once I’m already in England it will be much easier to get a job in another city like London or Manchester—these being places with larger Jewish communities.

The after-hours calls in the U.K. fall on Shabbos (this is the case in any city in the U.K.). Every month I would be on call one Friday and one Saturday. I have tried to arrange it so that I will not be on call on Shabbos but it is not possible on an organizational level to make such exceptions for me and not for other people. I would, however, be entitled to swap a call on a personal level on my own accord. The doctors that I spoke to there appeared to be quite flexible but I do not really know how flexible and for how long, or if they would accept money to do my calls. In South Africa I never have to do calls on Shabbos or Yom Tov; it is so arranged and is acceptable to all parties involved. If I resign from my job in South Africa, the chances of getting it again are low.

Can I go to Birmingham, where the training is better, the long-term future is brighter (as opposed to the future of South Africa), and—once I move to a larger Jewish community—there are more eligible girls, even though there is a chance that I will have to work on Shabbos?

Do I require a halakhic ruling or can I decide for myself (i.e., go and try to arrange things myself)? Do you think I should perhaps pose this question to someone else?