Cross-Cultural Communication Skills Training For Migrant Professionals In Australia: Challenges Facing Overseas-trained Health Professionals

Abstract

In the last decade, there has been a shortage of health professionals in Australia, most notably in regional and rural areas. To meet this need, the government has introduced a number of incentive schemes, such as the Rural Health Workforce Strategy (RHWS). Under the RHWS, overseastrained doctors are given incentives to work in remote areas of the country. However, without proper support in the form of training in cross-cultural communication skills, doctors from another culture with a non-English speaking background are likely to face difficulties when practising in a multicultural society such as Australia, and these problems may be more acute in regional and rural areas. In this presentation, I report on the findings of a study which explores the challenges to migrant health professionals from a non-English speaking background when working in the healthcare profession in Australia. I focus in particular on the language and communication issues arising from their multicultural working environment and explore the effects of the Occupational English Test (OET), which for the purpose of registration overseas-trained doctors must pass if they do not sit for the IELTS. The data for the study include interviews with teachers and students on an English course preparing migrant health professionals for the OET and with Australian doctors-in-training who added the perspectives of local health professionals. Other sources of data include government policy documents, information pertaining to the OET and English language teaching materials for health professionals. I compare the language and communication needs as perceived by the different groups of informants and discuss the way in which the OET has enhanced or impeded the teaching and learning of the language and communication skills required for healthcare practice in a multicultural society. Finally, I review the implications of the findings for the cross-cultural communication training of migrant health professionals.