The idea of a virtual clinical attachment for international medical workers originated from the difficulties faced during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although international doctors play a vital role in the delivery of healthcare in the NHS, many of them face significant difficulties, especially in the initial stages, adjusting to the NHS system. This is mainly because the working of the NHS is often vastly different from the domestic healthcare system that they are accustomed to. Clinical attachments are a popular method of getting familiar with the NHS, but the severe restrictions of the pandemic resulted in a vacuum which a virtual clinical attachment can aim to fill, albeit with some expected limitations.
We coordinated with the West Bengal branch of the Association of Otolaryngologists of India, the Indian counterpart of ENT UK, to trial a pilot project for a virtual clinical attachment for ENT doctors. Prof. Saumendra Nath Bandyopdhyay, Head of the Department of ENT, Medical College, Kolkata, India, was the Co-ordinating Consultant Lead in India, and helped us contact eleven prospective candidates for the programme. Two of them later withdrew due to personal reasons and the final registration for the programme was done by nine participants.
The participants underwent an initial introductory session, via MS Teams, outlining the aims, objectives and planned activities of the programme, following which they were sent a formal registration form to complete. This was followed by a pre-programme survey to evaluate background knowledge about the contents of the programme as well as gain insight into the personal preferences of the candidates to tailor the nuances of the programme to better suit their needs.
The participants ranked information on audits as their most desired requirement followed by demonstration of patient interactions and details on career pathways. Requirement of information on the social and financial aspects of life in the UK was ranked bottom in the survey.
It is planned now to hold regular virtual sessions in the upcoming weeks to address the requirements identified through the survey and to take another survey at the end of the programme to ascertain its utility from the perspective of the participants. This is expected to be completed by end of August 2022.
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