Country of qualification is linked to doctors’ General Medical Council performance assessment rate, but is it linked to their clinical competence?

Abstract

Mehdizah and colleagues recently described the prevalence of General Medical Council regulatory performance assessments by doctors’ country of primary medical qualification. This article has caused anger within the UK–international medical community because it identifies graduates of certain countries with significantly raised prevalence.The present article comments on evidence from published Royal College of General Practitioners’ data that support these conclusions. However, in an increasingly international age of medical education, the ambiguity of attributions of qualifying from a certain country needs addressing. Some medical students of British nationality, for example, who fail to obtain a place at a UK medical school, train in medical schools abroad, and thus may be identified as international medical graduates.Please see related article: https://bmcmededuc.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12909-017-0903-6.

Are there differences between those doctors who apply for a training post in Foundation Year 2 and those who take time out of the training pathway? A UK multicohort study

“…However, these students are eligible for the FP and specialty training pathways in the same way as ‘home’ students, and their continued contribution to the medical workforce and healthcare delivery is expected and indeed required. Unlike international medical graduates who come to the UK to work after graduating in another country,57–62 international students who graduate from UK medical students are a relatively understudied group. The relative patterns of this group compared with ‘home’ students merit further research.…”

Evaluating the recruitment process into UK anaesthesia core training: a national data linkage study of doctors’ performance at selection and subsequent postgraduate training

“…This effect diminished modestly but persisted when ARCP outcomes related to postgraduate exam failures were excluded. Previous research shows consistently lower performance of BME trainees in UK postgraduate medical exams19 21 23 and ARCP25 across a number of specialties, including the anaesthetic Primary FRCA 28. The reasons underlying such differential performance are likely to be complex, subtle and multifactorial and have been much debated 24 28 29…”

“…The role of influences on both performance at recruitment and in training should be taken into account where possible. These factors could include age,15 gender,16–19 country of primary qualification20 and ethnicity 21–24…”