“It’s a mind-changing game!”: Health professional educators working abroad

Abstract

Higher education is now a global industry. As students and staff travel across the globe to study and teach, both the student population and the academic staff profile is becoming increasingly international. While there is a reasonable literature documenting the experiences and challenges of international students, little is, however, known about educators who chose to work outside their country of origin. Following a pilot study carried out in the Middle East, a revised online survey canvassed the global community of health professional educators (n = 89) to garner not only demographic information but also first-hand accounts of their experiences as international educators. The educators were overwhelmingly positive about their rich experiences in new cultural contexts, acknowledging considerable personal development and broadening perspectives. Their challenges were largely personal, in terms of the impact on their families and adapting to new ways of doing things. We propose an innovative model taking into consideration the many individual and environmental factors involved in the pre-departure and the immersion phases.

Keywords

• Adjustment
• adaptation
• antecedent
• health professional
• international educator