Abstract:

In the developed countries, the shortage of health care workforce is evident. Because of distorted population structure there is too little young population to take care of the aging one. People expect that they are taken care of by means of improved health care technologies and treatments. In addition, health care professions compete for decreasing amount of young work force with less strenuous and better paid professions. However, there are still parts of the world with overproduction of health care workforce. For example, Nordic countries can offer these health care workers working conditions that are compatible.

Authorities granting professional rights to practice to health care staff in Europe may demand extra training from immigrant workforce in order to validate their professional rights. In this study, we call this education ‘’validation education’’ to separate it from programs leading to bachelor level professional degrees. To attract workforce, the quality of the education needs to be high, and it must be organised in a manner that supports health professionals entering it. This study reports the opinions of students who have come to study to validate their degrees in health professions received elsewhere than Finland. We also compare their opinions to those of their lecturers.

We executed a small-scale online survey in a Finnish University of applied sciences (UAS) providing validation education for health care personnel wishing to practice their profession in Finland. The education was offered in the frames of project ‘’Validation pathway of healthcare professionals’’ and financed by the Service Center for Continuous Learning and Employment (SECLE). Students' and lecturers' email addresses were chosen from the registries of the educational institution. Data subjects (70 students and 21 teachers) were provided with data privacy notices and informant letters. Seven lecturers and fifteen students responded the survey. Likert-scale (1 to 4) statements were analysed by descriptive statistics.

Students (mean 3.36) and lecturers (2.96) were quite satisfied with the study contents and pedagogy. However, both students (mean 2.6) and lecturers (2.0) were least satisfied with the amount of student peer feedback. Both groups were also satisfied with how studies had been organised. Students gave lowest scores for experiencing study burden (mean 2.93) and teachers on peer support from other students (mean score 2.0). Students felt that practicing in skills labs (mean 3.38) and clinical placements (mean 2.91) responded to their needs. However, both students and lecturers thought that it was difficult to organise clinical placements for immigrant students.

The way validation education has been implemented in Finland seems successful: education is well organised and meets students' needs, students are motivated, and a substantial effort has been put to improve students' Finnish language proficiency, especially on the use of professional language. However, in the future more emphasis should be put on grouping the students, peer feedback, and support. These affect the sense of belongingness which is very important for settling to study community and later on to the health care work community. Also, in case health care organisations wish to have foreign workforce they should put invest in them already at the validation stage by offering them enough relevant clinical placements.

Keywords:

Health care, workforce, validation education.