Medical students and refugee doctors: learning together.

摘要

Context and setting REACHE is an education centre for refugee and asylum seeker health care professionals. It aims to assist their re-qualification and entry into the UK National Health Service through the provision of English language classes, medical knowledge and skills update, help with cultural adaptation for the workplace and assistance with job finding and interview skills. Why the idea was necessary Refugee doctors may have years of working experience and well-honed clinical skills; however, they often have a doctor-centred approach that is unsuited to current patient-centred practice in the UK. Medical students, by contrast, are still learning clinical skills, but are trained from an early stage in communication skills and the need to take the patient's agenda into account. They have a knowledge of idiom and colloquial language that takes international medical graduates years to master. What was done We devised a programme that brings medical students and refugee doctors together 1 evening perweek to prepare for objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs). Attendance is voluntary and attracts 6-20 participants. An informal atmosphere encourages mixing and the formation of friendships. The participants work on the OSCEs in small groups, taking turns to role play as the examination candidate, the patient or the examiner. The use of colloquialisms and discussions of cultural differences in medical practice are encouraged. Tutors circulate to ensure that groups run smoothly and to identify learning points to be fed back to the class.