INTRODUCTION: Since 2006, one hospital has offered two clinical courses in obstetrics/gynaecology and paediatrics to international (I) students. However, as I-student enrolment increased, the hospital faced cut-backs. As from 2010, I-team course evaluations therefore dropped to unacceptable levels and more I- than Danish (DK) students failed exams. Therefore, in 2012 we started a three-year internationalisation project (I-project) at two hospitals. The primary intervention was to pair training for I- and DK-students at clinical contact, and to offer an exclusive daily lecturer for I-teams.

METHODS: We compared the course evaluations and exam grades of I-teams and DK-teams for two years prior to (107 from I-teams - 211 participants from DK-teams) and during the I-project (245 participants from I-teams - 575 from DK-teams).

RESULTS: During the I-project, the I-teams' course evaluations increased to acceptable values and to levels comparable to the evaluation scores of DK-teams. Furthermore, I-students now considered that their communication with the patients was acceptable. Before the I-project, I-students had lower exam grades (median = 10 (range: 0-12)) than DK-students (10 (4-12)) (p = 0.03), but during the I-project, exam grades increased to the levels achieved by DK-students (10 (2-12) - 10 (0-12) (p = 0.22), and no more I- than DK-students failed exams (p = 0.51).

CONCLUSIONS: Pairing students for clinical training and allocating an exclusive lecturer for I-teams produced improved courses for internationalisation. Allocating an exclusive lecturer was associated with a cost of about 615 EUR per student per course when the team consisted of ten students.

FUNDING: The Capital Region of Denmark and the University of Copenhagen.

TRIAL REGISTRATION: not relevant.