Foundation Doctors and Dyslexia
Background Dyslexia is the most common form of specific learning difficulty affecting approximately 6% of the general UK population and believed to affect approximately 2% of UK medical students. The impact of dyslexia on early practice has not been studied.
Objectives To develop an understanding of the challenges faced by doctors with dyslexia in the first year of practice and their support requirements.
Methods Semistructured telephone interviews were conducted with seven foundation year 1 doctors with dyslexia from Scottish hospitals between March 2013 and August 2013.
Results Foundation doctors indicated that due to their dyslexia, they experience difficulty with all forms of communication, time management and anxiety. There were concerns about disclosure of their dyslexia to colleagues and supervisors. Coping strategies used frequently were safety-netting and planning; technology solutions did offer some assistance.
Conclusions Although technological interventions have the potential to offer benefits to foundation doctors with dyslexia, increased openness about a diagnosis of dyslexia with discussion between doctor and supervisors about the challenges and anxieties is likely to provide the most benefit.
Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent reading and spelling; it represents a continuum of difficulties rather than clear cut limitations, and occurs across the range of intellectual abilities. Dyslexia is characterised by a specific pattern of impairments whereby learners struggle to develop certain skills compared with their non-dyslexic peers, namely, accurate and fluent word reading, spelling, working memory and automaticity of basic skills. Co-occurring difficulties may be seen in aspects of language, motor coordination, mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation, but these are not, by themselves, markers of dyslexia.
People with dyslexia experience challenges which may include visual, writing, memory or orientation issues (Box 1).
Dyslexia has an estimated global prevalence of about 6%. Within medical education, the number of students disclosing a diagnosis of dyslexia is estimated to be approximately 2%, and is steadily rising internationally. Widening access to higher education has inevitably increased the numbers of students with dyslexia pursuing careers in medicine and allied health professions.
Speculation exists as to whether dyslexia could interfere with clinicians' abilities, such as reading, writing and prescribing safely within a team, resulting in uneven distribution of workload. Small-scale analyses of medical students' assessment data have, so far, not demonstrated differences in performance between dyslexic and non-dyslexic students. In the UK, a Prescribing Skills Assessment for medical students has been piloted and indeed may be developed to include a test situation, which reflects working in a stressful situation with interruptions and so on. Medical schools do not currently universally assess prescribing performance under the conditions of time pressure and stress, and the impact of these factors on efficient and accurate prescribing by foundation doctors with dyslexia is therefore unknown.
The transition between medical school and working as a foundation year doctor is daunting for those with 'neuro-typical' patterns of learning and functioning; those with dyslexia might find this transition more challenging in areas of communication, prescribing, data handling and task coordination. Communication and medication errors are commonly identified in adverse incidents, and involvement and fear of involvement in adverse incidents are known to be significant stressors for doctors in training. Therefore, foundation doctors with dyslexia may be subject to greater stressors than neuro-typical colleagues.
This study used semistructured interviews with doctors with a diagnosis of dyslexia in their first year of practice to develop an understanding of the impact of dyslexia and of the support requirements of this group.
Abstract and Introduction
Abstract
Background Dyslexia is the most common form of specific learning difficulty affecting approximately 6% of the general UK population and believed to affect approximately 2% of UK medical students. The impact of dyslexia on early practice has not been studied.
Objectives To develop an understanding of the challenges faced by doctors with dyslexia in the first year of practice and their support requirements.
Methods Semistructured telephone interviews were conducted with seven foundation year 1 doctors with dyslexia from Scottish hospitals between March 2013 and August 2013.
Results Foundation doctors indicated that due to their dyslexia, they experience difficulty with all forms of communication, time management and anxiety. There were concerns about disclosure of their dyslexia to colleagues and supervisors. Coping strategies used frequently were safety-netting and planning; technology solutions did offer some assistance.
Conclusions Although technological interventions have the potential to offer benefits to foundation doctors with dyslexia, increased openness about a diagnosis of dyslexia with discussion between doctor and supervisors about the challenges and anxieties is likely to provide the most benefit.
Introduction
Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent reading and spelling; it represents a continuum of difficulties rather than clear cut limitations, and occurs across the range of intellectual abilities. Dyslexia is characterised by a specific pattern of impairments whereby learners struggle to develop certain skills compared with their non-dyslexic peers, namely, accurate and fluent word reading, spelling, working memory and automaticity of basic skills. Co-occurring difficulties may be seen in aspects of language, motor coordination, mental calculation, concentration and personal organisation, but these are not, by themselves, markers of dyslexia.
People with dyslexia experience challenges which may include visual, writing, memory or orientation issues (Box 1).
Dyslexia has an estimated global prevalence of about 6%. Within medical education, the number of students disclosing a diagnosis of dyslexia is estimated to be approximately 2%, and is steadily rising internationally. Widening access to higher education has inevitably increased the numbers of students with dyslexia pursuing careers in medicine and allied health professions.
Speculation exists as to whether dyslexia could interfere with clinicians' abilities, such as reading, writing and prescribing safely within a team, resulting in uneven distribution of workload. Small-scale analyses of medical students' assessment data have, so far, not demonstrated differences in performance between dyslexic and non-dyslexic students. In the UK, a Prescribing Skills Assessment for medical students has been piloted and indeed may be developed to include a test situation, which reflects working in a stressful situation with interruptions and so on. Medical schools do not currently universally assess prescribing performance under the conditions of time pressure and stress, and the impact of these factors on efficient and accurate prescribing by foundation doctors with dyslexia is therefore unknown.
The transition between medical school and working as a foundation year doctor is daunting for those with 'neuro-typical' patterns of learning and functioning; those with dyslexia might find this transition more challenging in areas of communication, prescribing, data handling and task coordination. Communication and medication errors are commonly identified in adverse incidents, and involvement and fear of involvement in adverse incidents are known to be significant stressors for doctors in training. Therefore, foundation doctors with dyslexia may be subject to greater stressors than neuro-typical colleagues.
This study used semistructured interviews with doctors with a diagnosis of dyslexia in their first year of practice to develop an understanding of the impact of dyslexia and of the support requirements of this group.
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