Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2019 Mar 18;19(1):86.
doi: 10.1186/s12909-019-1514-1.

'A melting pot of cultures' -challenges in social adaptation and interactions amongst international medical students

E Byrne  1 , R Brugha  2 , A McGarvey  3
Affiliations

'A melting pot of cultures' -challenges in social adaptation and interactions amongst international medical students

E Byrne et al. BMC Med Educ. .

Abstract

Background: The internationalisation of higher level education and the profiles - nationalities, ethnicities and cultural identities - of students who migrate to undertake higher level education programmes in a different country are increasingly complex. This article explores the way in which cultural backgrounds impact the student's experiences of an international medical school, and how these experiences have the potential to inform the development and design of student support services for those students who are not coping well with the transition.

Methods: Thirty one first year students were interviewed by sixteen second year students who were trained and supervised by an experienced researcher. Three focus group discussions were also held.

Results: While many international students had lived in more than one country and region and spoke several languages, most reported difficulties in forming intercultural friendships, especially interactions outside of the academic setting. Some of the challenges faced were similar to what has been reported in the literature, such as difficulties with language and loss of established friendship networks. Other challenges to emerge in this study were the complex interrelatedness of the daily life challenges facing international students regarding the forming and importance of intercultural relations, which is impacted by gender, the presence of alcohol, languages spoken (in addition to English, which was the language used for medical education), and the dominance of the regional grouping the student belongs to.

Conclusion: The challenges of adaptation and intercultural relations are increasing in complexity and it is important for higher level institutions who enrol international students to understand the nature of the pressures these students experience, outside as well as within the academic environment, and to support them in managing these transitions.

Keywords: Acculturation; Culture; International education; Internationalisation; Medical education; Social adjustment.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The study was approved by the RCSI Research Ethics Committee (Reference number: REC566bb). All participants consented to participate in the study before and after their participation and signed a consent form.

Consent for publication

All participants in the research consented to the publishing of the anonymised data from the study.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Representation of years 1 & 2 medical students based on region of origin for academic year 2014 / 2015 (adapted from [13])
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. OECD: Education indicators in focus. In. Edited by OECD, vol. 05 (July); 2013.
    1. Russell J, Rosenthal D, Thomson G. The international student experience: three styles of adaptation. High Educ. 2010;60(2):235–249.
    1. Bennett RJ, Volet SE, Fozdar FE. “I’d say it’s kind of unique in a way”: the development of an intercultural student relationship. J Stud Int Educ. 2013;17(November):533–553.
    1. Kruss G, McGrath S, Petersen I, Gastrow M. Higher education and economic development: the importance of building technological capabilities. Int J Educ Dev. 2015;43(July):22–31.
    1. Brown L, Holloway I. The initial stage of the international sojourn: excitement or culture shock? British J Guid Couns. 2008;36(1):33–49.

LinkOut - more resources