Abstract:

Background:
Up to 40% of the UK junior doctor workforce is maintained by international medical graduates (IMGs) (GMC 2020). Therefore, there is a high demand for educational programmes for this population. Many IMGs find it difficult to gain experience and opportunity to learn about the UK healthcare system. Clinical attachments are excellent learning opportunities however, these can be expensive or entail visas making the opportunity difficult to fulfil. Many IMGs face additional stress regarding expectations required of doctors and the uncertainty that surrounds this (Kalra et al., 2012). The demand for IMGs is growing in many countries around the world and we demonstrate how local doctors may aid in their integration by creating an online streamed course.

Aims:
To create an online course tailored to international medical graduates based on UK guidelines in order to improve understanding and confidence.

Objectives:
To create a series of 4 sessions delivering interactive live sessions.

Methods:
The course was created with use of IMGs currently working within the UK as well as UK graduates. Content was meticulously created using the NHS UK Foundation Programme “Higher Learning Objectives” to fulfil the expectations for doctors in the UK. The course was advertised at international universities and was delivered via Microsoft Teams. Each session ended with a Q&A panel focussed on the topic of the online seminar session. Feedback from the sessions was collected from participants.

Results:
The course received an initial sign-up count of over 458 participants from 53 countries and attendees ranged from 75 to 174 during the series of 4 sessions. Overall, participants reported improved confidence and extremely positive written feedback was received. Every category assessed showed clear improvement from the course.

Conclusion:
This study illustrated the ways in which a department may tailor an online educational programme to the specific needs of their healthcare system. This may be used to educate, recruit, and improve confidence in international medical graduates seeking to immigrate and integrate themselves into the local healthcare system. Very little equipment is required and may be a useful investment of a departments time to train future IMGs before the transition to the new healthcare system. Moreover, it was found amongst the organisers that refreshments greatly improved morale during preparation and delivery of the sessions. There is a great demand for courses to be delivered online internationally due to monetary or family obligations. Healthcare systems around the world are likely to benefit from incorporating such teaching programmes to IMGs around the world.

References:
[1] General Medical Council. State of medical education and practice in the UK. GMC, 2020:15-25. www.gmc-uk.org/about/what-we-do-and-why/data-and-research/the-state-of-medical-education-and-practice-in-the-uk
[2] Kalra G, Bhugra DK, and Shah N. Identifying and addressing stresses in international medical graduates. Acad Psychiatry. 2012; 323-329

Keywords:

Healthcare education, IMG, online course, digital learning, distance learning.