Alternative career pathways for international medical graduates towards job market integration: a literature review.

OBJECTIVES: To inform the current level of research about alternative career pathways for international medical graduates and synthesize knowledge of the barriers, facilitators and potential outcomes of alternative career pathways for international medical graduates. METHODS: We searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, Scopus, and Google Scholar for relevant publications to February 2020. From 809 articles, after two levels of screening, 23 articles were selected. We conducted thematic content analysis and reported the findings of the study following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. RESULTS: All 23 articles reported on alternative careers for international medical graduates in either the United States or Canada. A variety of study methods were noted, including original research, scoping reviews, reports for organizations, and commentaries. Studies incorporated a variety of methods, including surveys, focus groups, interviews, analysis of administrative documents, and program evaluation. Many potential benefits of alternative careers were reported for both international medical graduates and stakeholders. Barriers to pursuing alternative careers included both individual- and systemic-level barriers. Facilitators included skill-building workshops, targeted bridging programs, connecting with employers, supporting organizations, and international medical graduates. CONCLUSIONS: The scarce literature on alternative career pathways indicates that this research is beneficial for both international medical graduates and their host countries. Initiating capacity building programs for alternative career pathways for international medical graduates might be a worthy investment for host countries, especially in underserved areas. Pilot initiatives incorporating bridging programs for international medical graduates are recommended.

Professional integration of immigrant medical professionals through alternative career pathways: an Internet scan to synthesize the current landscape.

BACKGROUND: There is a growing recognition that underutilization and underemployment of skilled immigrants, especially internationally trained health professionals, creates a financial burden on individuals and economic losses for the host country. Albeit a missed opportunity for both the immigrants and the receiving country, no public policy and systemic measures are in place to address this issue. Nevertheless, certain individuals and organizations have made some isolated efforts, but no synthesized knowledge is available for understanding what initiatives exist altogether and how they function. We have conducted a methodological Internet scan to identify the existing individual, private, and systemic initiatives and resources that support these health professionals. This will provide health and workforce policymakers, settlement service providers, and relevant academics with the knowledge base for potential different strategies to address this issue and guide them towards developing solution-oriented initiatives. METHODS: To identify those we have systematically searched the three most popular search engines (Google, Bing, and Yahoo!) adapting the Canadian Institute for Health Information's grey literature review protocol. We identified relevant websites per our predefined inclusion criteria, charted the data from those sources, collated, summarized, and reported the results. RESULTS: From 280 webpages initially identified through keyword search, we included 26 in our full-page screen and extracted data from 16 finally selected webpages. We have found webpages with information on different alternative careers namely, regulated and non-regulated, available resources to pursue those careers, and what skills they have that can be transferred to the alternative careers. CONCLUSION: More systemic policies and IMG specific and ACP-focused employment support programmes are required. Research and development of programmes for facilitating IMGs' alternative career support need to be increased and strengthened.