BMJ Best Practice for International Medical Graduates

Dr Doyinsola Olaniyan, Dr Kieran Walsh?

Moving to a new country can be a challenge. This is true for anyone, but doctors can face particular challenges. There is simply quite a lot to cope with. You have to learn how to navigate a new healthcare system. And a new regulatory system. And a new medical education system. There can be language and cultural barriers. There are also basic things like finding a place to stay or getting a bank account.

The UK needs more doctors so it makes sense to provide as much support as possible for international medical graduates. The purpose of the Centre for International Medical Graduates https://centreforimgs.com/centre-for-imgs/ is to support doctors who have recently come to live and work in the UK. The Centre provides courses and coaching to help these doctors to get settled. It provides education on language, communication skills, and professionalism.??

Of course, it cannot do everything on its own - it needs to collaborate with other providers. So we are delighted that the Centre for IMGs has been collaborating with BMJ Best Practice https://bestpractice.bmj.com/info/ to promote clinical decision support resources for all healthcare professionals.

BMJ Best Practice is nationally funded by NHS England and so freely available to staff and learners in England. All healthcare professionals need is an NHS OpenAthens account to log in - which can be created here or by speaking to your NHS library. BMJ Best Practice provides clinical decision support resources that are evidence-based, continually updated, and actionable. It is especially helpful for doctors who are starting off in their careers - as many of the international graduates are. It is also based on national guidelines - such as NICE guidelines. Once again this is important for international doctors who need to learn how to practice in England. BMJ Best Practice is fundamentally a knowledge resource but it also covers skills such as communication skills which are essential to practice.

All these are core features of BMJ Best Practice. However in this initiative, we have taken things a few steps further by delivering webinars to the international medical graduates on clinical decision support. We have also mapped relevant BMJ Best Practice topics to relevant sections of courses provided by the Centre. Within the acute medicine for international medical graduates course, you would find relevant links to BMJ Best Practice topics for further reading and reference as good foundational practice.?

We hope that this work will all help with the education and training of doctors from overseas as they adapt to the nuances of the new system and then provide a much-needed service to the NHS. If you would like to find out more about the Centre for International Medical Graduates or BMJ Best Practice, please don’t hesitate to get in touch - we would be delighted to hear from you.

Find out more at: bmj.com/nhse

Dr Doyinsola Olaniyan MBBS, AFHEA, MRCP(UK)

Doyinsola Olaniyan is currently undergoing her higher specialty training in Acute Internal Medicine in the East of England deanery. She is passionate about medical education and contributing her quota to helping IMGs integrate into the NHS. Doyinsola originally graduated in Nigeria.

Dr Kieran Walsh, MB

Dr Kieran Walsh is Clinical Director at BMJ. He is the clinical lead of the medical education and clinical decision support resources at BMJ. He has a vast amount of experience in online medical education, clinical decision support, face-to-face delivery of medical education, and both summative and formative assessment. He has experience of using all of these in programmes to strengthen health systems. He is Adjunct Associate Professor in Teaching and Research at Monash University. He has published over 200 papers in the biomedical literature and has written four books on medical education. Kieran originally graduated in the Republic of Ireland

Competing interests

KW works for BMJ

DO is an? Education Fellow with the Centre for International Medical Graduates