The “global health workforce crisis” is the combined effect of three different problems in the global distribution of health workforce: a critical shortage of health care workers, a radically uneven distribution of personnel, and the increasing migration of health workers from poor countries to affluent ones (often called “medical brain drain”). What are the main ethical questions that arise from this situation, and how can we foster fair and feasible solutions? Topics to be discussed include: migration vs. distribution; freedom of movement vs. right to (population) health; ethics and the policy of recruitment; the state’s right to restrict emigration; sufficiency in health workforce planning; duties of medical migrants; medical tourism and the role of medical education.