International medical learners and their adjustment after returning to their countries of origin: a qualitative study.

INTRODUCTION: International medical trainees, including residents and fellows, must cope with many challenges, such as differences in cultural hierarchical systems, languages, and acceptance. Nonetheless, the need for adjustment perpetuates even after training is completed abroad. When some international trainees return to their countries of origin, they continue to face adjustment challenges due to reverse culture shock. Others must make many further readjustments. This study presents an exploration of the adjustment and coping strategies of international medical learners after returning to their countries of origin upon completion of their programs. METHOD: This study employed a qualitative approach grounded in interpretivism and utilised inductive thematic analysis following Braun and Clarke's method. Semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews were employed to explore the participants' coping strategies. Participants included international medical learners who were (1) international medical graduates who had already returned to their countries of origin, (2) non-Canadian citizens or nonpermanent residents by the start of the programs, and (3) previously enrolled in a residency or fellowship training programme at the University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. RESULTS: Seventeen participants were included. Three main themes and seven subthemes were created from the analysis and are represented by the Ice Skater Landing Model. According to this model, there are three main forces in coping processes upon returning home: driving, stabilising, and situational forces. The sum and interaction of these forces impact the readjustment process. CONCLUSION: International medical learners who have trained abroad and returned to their countries of origin often struggle with readjustment. An equilibrium between the driving and stabilising forces is crucial for a smooth transition. The findings of this study can help stakeholders better understand coping processes. As healthy coping processes are related to job satisfaction and retention, efforts to support and shorten repatriation adjustment are worthwhile.

Role of graduate courses in promoting educational scholarship of health care professionals.

PROBLEM ADDRESSED: Many courses are offered to health care professionals to improve educational scholarship and scholarly teaching. The literature on the effect of such courses on promoting educational scholarship and scholarly teaching is currently suboptimal. OBJECTIVE OF PROGRAM: To evaluate scholarly productivity of health care professional learners participating in 2 graduate courses in which curricula and assignments facilitated experiential learning. PROGRAM DESCRIPTION: A retrospective analysis of course assignments and publications of learners from 2007 to 2014 was conducted. Learners' current positions were identified through Google Scholar searches, and publication of course work was identified through PubMed or EMBASE author searches. There were 137 learners, with a male to female ratio of 3:7, consisting of physicians (73%) and other health care professionals (27%). During the 7 years, 50% completed both courses, 42% only the first course, and 8% only the second course. Of the learners whose current positions could be identified, 66% worked at academic centres, 20% at community hospitals or office practices, and 5% were in senior leadership positions. Current positions were unidentifiable through public records for 9% of learners. Sixty-eight percent of learners (93 of 137) published 1050 articles in peer-reviewed journals. Twenty-six percent of learners (35 of 137) published 1 or more articles based on their course assignments, for a total of 49 peer-reviewed articles; 80% of articles were published within 3 years of completing the course. CONCLUSION: Experiential learning facilitated by curricular design and assignments coupled with mentorship stimulated scholarly publications. Educational courses should design curricula to promote scholarship in learners and evaluate their effect.

Advancing Integrated Care through Psychiatric Workforce Development: A Systematic Review of Educational Interventions to Train Psychiatrists in Integrated Care.

OBJECTIVE: Integrated or collaborative care is a well-evidenced and widely practiced approach to improve access to high-quality mental health care in primary care and other settings. Psychiatrists require preparation for this emerging type of practice, and such training is now mandatory for Canadian psychiatry residents. However, it is not known how best to mount such training, and in the absence of such knowledge, the quality of training across Canada has suffered. To guide integrated care education nationally, we conducted a systematic review of published and unpublished training programs. METHOD: We searched journal databases and web-based 'grey' literature and contacted all North American psychiatry residency programs known to provide integrated care training. We included educational interventions targeting practicing psychiatrists or psychiatry residents as learners. We critically appraised literature using the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI). We described the goals, content, and format of training, as well as outcomes categorized according to Kirkpatrick level of impact. RESULTS: We included 9 published and 5 unpublished educational interventions. Studies were of low to moderate quality and reflected possible publication bias toward favourable outcomes. Programs commonly involved longitudinal clinical experiences for residents, mentoring networks for practicing physicians, or brief didactic experiences and were rarely oriented toward the most empirically supported models of integrated care. Implementation challenges were widespread. CONCLUSIONS: Similar to integrated care clinical interventions, integrated care training is important yet difficult to achieve. Educational initiatives could benefit from faculty development, quality improvement to synergistically improve care and training, and stronger evaluation. Systematic review registration number: PROSPERO 2014:CRD42014010295.

Family Medicine in Ethiopia: Lessons from a Global Collaboration.

BACKGROUND: Building the capacity of local health systems to provide high-quality, self-sustaining medical education and health care is the central purpose for many global health partnerships (GHPs). Since 2001, our global partner consortium collaborated to establish Family Medicine in Ethiopia; the first Ethiopian family physicians graduated in February 2016. METHODS: The authors, representing the primary Ethiopian, Canadian, and American partners in the GHP, identified obstacles, accomplishments, opportunities, errors, and observations from the years preceding residency launch and the first 3 years of the residency. RESULTS: Common themes were identified through personal reflection and presented as lessons to guide future GHPs. LESSON 1: Promote Family Medicine as a distinct specialty. LESSON 2: Avoid gaps, conflict, and redundancy in partner priorities and activities. LESSON 3: Building relationships takes time and shared experiences. LESSON 4: Communicate frequently to create opportunities for success. LESSON 5: Engage local leaders to build sustainable, long-lasting programs from the beginning of the partnership. CONCLUSIONS: GHPs can benefit individual participants, their organizations, and their communities served. Engaging with numerous partners may also result in challenges-conflicting expectations, misinterpretations, and duplication or gaps in efforts. The lessons discussed in this article may be used to inform GHP planning and interactions to maximize benefits and minimize mishaps.

Understanding integrated mental health care in "real-world" primary care settings: What matters to health care providers and clients for evaluation and improvement?

PURPOSE: The integration of mental health specialists into primary care has been widely advocated to deliver evidence-based mental health care to a defined population while improving access, clinical outcomes, and cost efficiency. Integrated care has been infrequently and inconsistently translated into real-world settings; as a result, the key individual components of effective integrated care remain unclear. METHOD: This article reports findings from a qualitative study that explored provider and client experiences of integrated care. We conducted in-depth interviews with integrated care providers (n = 13) and clients (n = 9) to understand their perspectives and experiences of integrated care including recommended areas for quality measurement and improvement. The authors used qualitative content and reflexive thematic analytic approaches to synthesize the interview data. RESULTS: Clients and integrated care providers agreed regarding the overarching concepts of the what, how, and why of integrated care including co-location of care; continuity of care; team composition and functioning; client centeredness; and comprehensive care for individuals and populations. Providers and clients proposed a number of dimensions that could be the focus for quality measurement and evaluation, illuminating what is needed for successful context-sensitive spreading and scaling of integrated care interventions. CONCLUSION: With a mounting gap between the empirical support for integrated care approaches and the implementation of these models, there is a need to clarify the aims of integrated care and the key ingredients required for widespread implementation outside of research settings. This study has important implications for future integrated care research, and health care provider and client engagement in the quality movement. (PsycINFO Database Record

Evaluating the Implementation of Integrated Mental Health Care: A Systematic Review to Guide the Development of Quality Measures.

OBJECTIVE: Although the effectiveness of integrated mental health care has been demonstrated, its implementation in real-world settings is highly variable, may not conform to evidence-based practice, and has rarely been evaluated. Quality indicators can guide improvements in integrated care implementation. However, the literature on indicators for this purpose is limited. This article reports findings from a systematic review of existing measures by which to evaluate integrated care models in primary care settings. METHODS: Bibliographic databases and gray literature sources, including academic conference proceedings, were searched to July 2014. Measures used or proposed to evaluate integrated care implementation or outcomes were extracted and critically appraised. A qualitative synthesis was conducted to generate a panel of unique measures and to group these measures into broad domains and specific dimensions of integrated care program performance. RESULTS: From 172 literature sources, 1,255 measures were extracted, which were distilled into 148 unique measures. Existing literature frequently reports integrated care program effectiveness vis-à-vis evidence-based care processes and individual clinical outcomes, as well as efficiency (cost-effectiveness) and client satisfaction. No measures of safety of care and few measures of equitability, accessibility, or timeliness of care were located, despite the known benefits of integrated care in several of these areas. CONCLUSIONS: To realize the potential for quality measurement to improve integrated care implementation, future measures will need to incorporate domains of quality that are presently unaddressed; microprocesses of care that influence effectiveness, sustainability, and transferability of models of care; and client and health care provider perspectives on meaningful measures of quality.

Integrating teaching into the busy resident schedule: a learner-centered approach to raise efficiency (L-CARE) in clinical teaching.

BACKGROUND: Clinical teachers are sometimes challenged by residents who seem too busy to concentrate on their learning. In such situations, teachers must be aware to diagnose underlying problems in learners and to effectively help them maximize learning while minimizing time and energy requirements. OBJECTIVE: To develop a learner-centered model to improve efficiency of clinical teaching. METHODS: We reviewed the literature on educational diagnosis, self-directed learning, and effective/efficient teaching to put together a new model. RESULTS: The Learner-Centered Approach to Raise Efficiency (L-CARE) in Clinical Teaching is inspired from the well-known patient-centered clinical method. Using the L-CARE in clinical teaching involves: (1) addressing the learners' feelings regarding their environment as well as patient care and study issues, which provides a good learning climate facilitating educational diagnosis and management of issues that could impair learning; (2) establishing a learning contract (expectations); (3) sharing resources and strategies (ideas) that should be effective without wasting time or energy; (4) self-assessment and constructive feedback (impact). These steps are grounded in self-directed learning theory to improve motivation and ensure that learners concentrate on their own needs to promote learning efficiency. CONCLUSION: The L-CARE model integrates educational diagnosis principles, self-directed learning theory, and efficient teaching strategies to improve efficiency of clinical teaching.