“I was working on a programme for refugee doctors when I heard about Time Together,” says Matthew Foster, head of the international office at the Royal College of Physicians. The scheme, run by the charity Timebank, matches refugees with a mentor to help them to adapt to UK life.

When Foster signed up he asked to be paired with a doctor. “I knew the system and felt I could help,” he says. The charity found Abdul Karim Atefi, a doctor from Afghanistan, who was working in Sainsbury’s and struggling to find a job in medicine.

The career path for overseas doctors is not easy. Before they can practise, they must pass rigorous English and professional conduct exams. Many give up. Atefi was different, he says. “At our first meeting, he disagreed with something I said and we got into a debate. It was a sign of confidence – his English was so good. I thought, ‘this guy’s going to make it’.”

Even so, there were disappointments. Competition was intense. “Some house officer jobs were attracting 1,000 applicants,” he says. The pair met once a week, going through application forms and talking on the phone in the evenings. “Writing an application form is difficult for anybody, let alone a refugee,” he says. “Abdul was underselling himself. He didn’t realise that his Afghanistan experience was relevant.”

One barrier for foreign doctors is that their last medical job was often years before. “Recruiters see it as a huge gap on their CVs.”

After seven months of applications, preparing for interviews and arranging introductions with medical professionals, Atefi was offered a job in a hospital. Foster recalls his relief: “At one point he said to me: ‘If I’d known it was going to be this hard I probably wouldn’t have bothered’.”

The two are still close and speak regularly on the phone. Foster feels that the experience has helped him, too. “It increased my confidence in dealing with people,” he says.

www.timebank.org.uk

Fleeing an oppressive political regime, you could be forgiven for thinking that career opportunities would be the last thing on Abdul Karim Atefi’s mind. Faced with a language he barely spoke, an alien culture and with a family to integrate, the refugee had plenty to think about when he arrived in 2000 – but he was set on using his medical skills.

“The first days were really hard. I started to look for a job in healthcare, then I realised my expectations were totally unrealistic,” he says. The medical school he had attended in Afghanistan was not recognised in the UK. It turned out to be the first of many road-blocks. “I didn’t have a chance, intially,” he says. Unfazed, he concentrated on learning English, completing an MSc in public health and passed the notoriously tough Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board, a compulsory test for foreign medical graduates.

Finding work as a doctor remained elusive. Frustrated, Atefi contacted the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics. “I said: ‘I need help with writing applications’,” he recalls. “So they put me in touch with Time Together, who introduced me to Matt.”

While fellowship networks exist for Indian and Pakistani doctors, Afghans have no such support, Atefi says. Foster helped him to overcome cultural differerences. “In Afghanistan, job vacancies are not advertised. Here it is more challenging, you are examined and compared to other applicants.” Foster helped him to present himself, he says. “Selling yourself is not seen so positively in my culture. But here it’s a requirement.”

Rejections were hard. Atefi estimates he received at least 50. “I didn’t want to disappoint Matt, I felt I owed it to him,” he says. The partnership paid off – he is now a senior house officer at North Devon district hospital and eventually hopes to become a GP.

“The most important thing was someone saying ‘You can do this’,” he says of being mentored. “I didn’t have anyone else to tell me that.”

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