Abstract
BackgroundOffshore medical schools are for-profit, private enterprises located in the Caribbean that provide undergraduate medical education to students who must leave the region for postgraduate training and also typically to practice. This growing industry attracts many medical students from the US and Canada who wish to return home to practice medicine. After graduation, international medical graduates can encounter challenges obtaining residency placements and can face other barriers related to practice.MethodsWe conducted a qualitative thematic analysis to discern the dominant messages found on offshore medical school websites. Dominant messages included frequent references to push and pull factors intended to encourage potential applicants to consider attending an offshore medical school. We reviewed 38 English-language Caribbean offshore medical school websites in order to extract and record content pertaining to push and pull factors.ResultsWe found two push and four pull factors present across most offshore medical school websites. Push factors include the: shortages of physicians in the US and Canada that require new medical trainees; and low acceptance rates at medical schools in intended students’ home countries. Pull factors include the: financial benefits of attending an offshore medical school; geographic location and environment of training in the Caribbean; training quality and effectiveness; and the potential to practice medicine in one’s home country.ConclusionsThis analysis contributes to our understanding of some of the factors behind students’ decisions to attend an offshore medical school. Importantly, push and pull factors do not address the barriers faced by offshore medical school graduates in finding postgraduate residency placements and ultimately practicing elsewhere. It is clear from push and pull factors that these medical schools heavily focus messaging and marketing towards students from the US and Canada, which raises questions about who benefits from this offshoring practice.
Highlights
Offshore medical schools are for-profit, private enterprises located in the Caribbean that provide undergraduate medical education to students who must leave the region for postgraduate training and typically to practice
Having thoroughly reviewed the promotional content that populates the websites of Caribbean offshore medical schools, here we critically examine messaging on websites that both encourages prospective students to leave their home countries for medical education and argues as to why they should select a specific school in a particular country for their training, which we categorize as ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors
Following this we provide details on the push and pull factors that Caribbean offshore medical schools use to attract and compete for students identified in the thematic analysis, providing direct quotes throughout in order to enhance the reliability of what we report
Summary
Offshore medical schools are for-profit, private enterprises located in the Caribbean that provide undergraduate medical education to students who must leave the region for postgraduate training and typically to practice. This growing industry attracts many medical students from the US and Canada who wish to return home to practice medicine. The Canadian Resident Matching Service (CaRMS) notes that some Canadians “opt to study medicine abroad because they have decided they would not be successful in Canada, or would rather not wait several years to be successful in their Canadian medical school application” ([1], p.6). There are currently thousands of US and Canadian students are studying medicine abroad, many of whom are enrolled in what have come to be known as ‘offshore medical schools’ [1, 4, 5]
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