International Medical Electives: Another Victim to the COVID Pandemic

Thundercliffe, Jack; Roberts, Megan

doi:10.1007/s40670-021-01467-9

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…Students often value their abroad experience to enhance their clinical skills and to aid in the understanding of different healthcare systems [ 13 ]. Electives may additionally provide students more responsibility and experience within diverse clinical environments [ 14 , 15 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of note, there are several barriers and challenges that students face when working outside of their comfort zone [ 16 ]. The biggest challenge in the past four years was most likely to secure an international elective placement after all [ 14 ]. Large scale lockdown measures, uncertainty posed by virus variants and unpredictable travel restrictions continued to stand in the way of reliably organizing an international elective during the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Long-term trends in international medical electives fees: a database mining study

Beckschulte,

Lederer,

Storz

2024

BMC Med Educ

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Background Abroad medical electives are recognized as high-impact practice and considered a necessity to provide global health training. As of recently, the COVID-19 pandemic and its related travel restrictions prohibited most international elective activities. Another important barrier to abroad electives that received comparably little attention is elective and application fees, which – combined – may be as high as $5000 per month, and may prevent students with limited financial resources from applying for an international elective. Elective fees have never been systematically analyzed and trends in teaching and application fees have rarely been subject to dedicated scientific investigations. Methods Using data from two large elective reports databases, the authors addressed this gap in the literature. The authors analyzed trends in abroad elective fees within the last 15 years in some of the most popular Anglo-American elective destinations among students from Germany, including the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of South Africa, Ireland and the United Kingdom. Results The authors identified n = 726 overseas elective reports that were uploaded between 2006 and 2020, of which n = 438 testimonies met the inclusion criteria. The United Kingdom and Australia were the most popular elective destinations (n = 123 and n = 113, respectively), followed by the Republic of South Africa (n = 104) and the United States of America (n = 44). Elective fees differed substantially—depending on the elective destinations and time point. Median elective fees were highest in the United States of America (€ 1875 for a 4-week elective between 2018–2020), followed by the Republic of South Africa (€ 400) and Australia (€ 378). The data also suggests an increasing trend for elective fees, particularly in the United States. Conclusions Rising fees warrant consideration and a discussion about the feasibility of reciprocity and the bidirectional flow of students in bidirectional exchange programs.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term trends in international medical electives fees: a database mining study

Beckschulte,

Lederer,

Storz

2024

BMC Med Educ

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International medical electives during and after the COVID-19 pandemic - current state and future scenarios: a narrative review

Storz

2022

Global Health

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Background International medical electives are an important and popular component of the academic curriculum in many medical schools and universities worldwide. The purpose of abroad electives is to provide medical students with an opportunity to gain a better understanding of education and healthcare in an international context. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, has substantially changed the international elective landscape. Travel restrictions, closures of international elective programs and the expansion of virtual methods for education caused a widespread disruption to abroad electives. A comprehensive analysis with regard to other consequences for abroad electives, however, has not been done before. Thus, we sought to a) summarize the current transformation of the international medical elective and b) to address potential challenges for post-pandemic international medical electives. Methods The methodology employed is a multidisciplinary narrative review of the published and grey literature on international electives during the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Results Students worldwide had electives postponed or canceled. Apart from evident immediate pandemic-related consequences (such as the substantial decline in global electives and impaired elective research opportunities for educators), there are other several problems that have received little attention during the last two years. These include challenges in the elective application process, poorly-understood consequences for host institutions, and growing global (ethical) disparities that are likely to increase once elective programs will gradually re-open. There is ample evidence that the post-pandemic elective landscape will be characterized by increasing elective fees, and a more competitive seat-to-applicant ratio. Ethical problems for international electives arising from an unequal global vaccine distribution will pose an additional challenge to students and elective coordinators alike. Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the international medical elective landscape in an unprecedented way, and future generations of medical students will face a series of additional challenges when applying for global medical electives.

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International Medical Electives: Another Victim to the COVID Pandemic

Cited by 2 publications

References 5 publications

Long-term trends in international medical electives fees: a database mining study

Long-term trends in international medical electives fees: a database mining study

International medical electives during and after the COVID-19 pandemic - current state and future scenarios: a narrative review

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