INTRODUCTIONThis paper looks at the barriers to effective postgraduate study potentially experienced by learners in the United Kingdom if their first language is not English. As part of the internationalisation of higher education, we are seeing a welcome increase in students leaving their home country to study. This brings benefits to both home and visiting students as they learn more about each other and come to understand differences and build on aspects they have in common. However it also brings specific challenges of linguistic capability, differences in cultural expectations of the role of learners and teachers and in the understanding of the nature of postgraduate study. English medium higher education institutions worldwide are increasingly engaged in development of courses on English for academic purposes, or for academic writing. There is even a Journal of English for Academic Purposes, with co-editors from Hong Kong and the UK. Previous research has tended to concentrate on teacher-centred issues such as maintaining the integrity of assessments (including a focus on inadvertent plagiarism), practical aspects such as familiarity and expertise with information technology and more recently an understanding that acculturation has a part to play in maximising the success of students moving from one country's academic model to another.

MATERIALS AND METHODSThis was a qualitative project during which students whose first language was not English were interviewed. Thirteen postgraduate students on a masters award in medical education were engaged in semi structured interviews to elicit their experiences, views and suggestions.

RESULTSThree themes emerged as important to the students in this study: understanding and being understood is not just due to the words we use; the nature of postgraduate study is not universal; and the need to maintain personal identity.

Communication Barriers ; Culture ; Education, Medical, Graduate ; Foreign Medical Graduates ; Humans ; Interviews as Topic ; Language ; United Kingdom

PURPOSE: United States (US) and Canadian citizens attending medical school abroad often desire to return to the US for residency, and therefore must pass US licensing exams. We describe a 2-day United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) step 2 clinical skills (CS) preparation course for students in the Technion American Medical School program (Haifa, Israel) between 2012 and 2016. METHODS: Students completed pre- and post-course questionnaires. The paired t-test was used to measure students' perceptions of knowledge, preparation, confidence, and competence in CS pre- and post-course. To test for differences by gender or country of birth, analysis of variance was used. We compared USMLE step 2 CS pass rates between the 5 years prior to the course and the 5 years during which the course was offered. RESULTS: Ninety students took the course between 2012 and 2016. Course evaluations began in 2013. Seventy-three students agreed to participate in the evaluation, and 64 completed the pre- and post-course surveys. Of the 64 students, 58% were US-born and 53% were male. Students reported statistically significant improvements in confidence and competence in all areas. No differences were found by gender or country of origin. The average pass rate for the 5 years prior to the course was 82%, and the average pass rate for the 5 years of the course was 89%. CONCLUSION: A CS course delivered at an international medical school may help to close the gap between the pass rates of US and international medical graduates on a high-stakes licensing exam. More experience is needed to determine if this model is replicable.
Clinical Competence* ; Curriculum ; Educational Measurement ; Foreign Medical Graduates ; Humans ; Internship and Residency ; Licensure* ; Male ; Mental Competency ; Parturition ; Schools, Medical ; United States*

PURPOSE: Although there have been studies emphasizing the re-education of North Korean (NK) doctors for post-unification of the Korean Peninsula, study on the content and scope of such re-education has yet to be conducted. Researchers intended to set the content and scope of re-education by a comparative analysis for the scores of the preliminary examination, which is comparable to the Korean Medical Licensing Examination (KMLE). METHODS: The scores of the first and second preliminary exams were analyzed by subject using the Wilcoxon signed rank test. The passing status of the group of NK doctors for KMLE in recent 3 years were investigated. The multiple-choice-question (MCQ) items of which difficulty indexes of NK doctors were lower than those of South Korean (SK) medical students by two times of the standard deviation of the scores of SK medical students were selected to investigate the relevant reasons. RESULTS: The average scores of nearly all subjects were improved in the second exam compared with the first exam. The passing rate of the group of NK doctors was 75%. The number of MCQ items of which difficulty indexes of NK doctors were lower than those of SK medical students was 51 (6.38%). NK doctors' lack of understandings for Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures, Therapeutics, Prenatal Care, and Managed Care Programs was suggested as the possible reason CONCLUSION: The education of integrated courses focusing on Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures and Therapeutics, and apprenticeship-style training for clinical practice of core subjects are needed. Special lectures on the Preventive Medicine are likely to be required also.
Clinical Competence ; Democratic People's Republic of Korea ; Diagnostic Techniques and Procedures ; Education ; Foreign Medical Graduates ; Humans ; Lectures ; Licensure ; Managed Care Programs ; Prenatal Care ; Preventive Medicine ; Refugees* ; Students, Medical