Global Health Education in the UK
Image courtesy of Medsin-Global Health Education Project (GHEP).
Today we’d like to announce the publication of Becky Wilson’s personal and compelling elective report on her time in working in palliative care in the James Paget University Hospital in Norfolk, UK. Read it here.
Meanwhile, today’s blog describes a recent conference arranged by the Medsin Global Health Education Project, exploring how global health can and should be integrated into UK medical curricula. Oliver Johnson and Vanessa Jessop, co-chairs of the project, tell us what the day achieved and how students can get involved.
UK [elective] preparation is of paramount importance if electives are to continue to be valuable educational opportunities, whilst ensuring that students, patients and health systems are protected.
Last Saturday saw Medsin-UK’s Global Health Education Project get off to a flying start with the organisations first ever Global Health Education Conference held at King’s College London. The aim of the conference was to provide an opportunity to share best practice on existing undergraduate global health teaching, develop national plans for global health education in UK medical schools, and create a strong network of staff and students with interest and expertise in this area.
Health is Global
Keynote speakers included Professor Peter Piot (Imperial College London) and Professor Andy Haines (LSHTM). Professor Piot stressed the importance of global health teaching for undergraduates, echoing his recent Lancet article ‘Health is Global’ (The Lancet, Volume 374, Issue 9696, Pages 1122 – 1123, 3 October 2009). He was followed by Marion Birch Director of health charity Medact, who introduced a discussion on which global health topics should be included as part of the core curriculum. She highlighted the importance of students utilising their increased awareness in this area to take action and advocate for improvements in health both nationally and internationally.
Global health, local issue
Claire Ferraro, fourth year medical student at the University of Newcastle, talked about her success in lobbying the medical faculty at Newcastle to include global health teaching as part of the core curriculum. Following the recent review of the General Medical Council’s ‘Tomorrow’s Doctors’, the document which ‘sets the knowledge, skills and behaviours that medical students should learn at UK medical schools’, undergraduates must now be able to ‘Discuss from a global perspective the determinants of health and disease and variations in healthcare delivery and medical practice.’ GHEP, with help from leading global health academics, is working to develop a standardised global health curriculum for adoption by all medical schools, helping to ensure that global health teaching is of a uniform high standard across the UK.
Ethical electives
The ethical issues surrounding medical student electives were also discussed, an area in which the GMC has, to date, failed to offer satisfactory guidance. There was a consensus amongst delegates that students should receive more robust pre-elective training, something which GHEP is currently developing, and be offered well-supervised, structured placements. UK preparation is of paramount importance if electives are to continue to be valuable educational opportunities, whilst ensuring that students, patients and health systems are protected.
Dr. Neil Merrylees was applauded for his work in setting up Dundee’s ‘Medicine in Malawi Placements’, a partnership between Dundee University Medical School, University of Malawi College of Medicine, and the Kamuzu Central Hospital in Lilongwe, Malawi. MIMP aims to provide medical manpower and resources to Malawi through a rolling programme of exchanges that will see at least 2-3 Scottish medical students being based at Kamuzu Central Hospital, Lilongwe, for approximately 9 months of the year.
Beyond the undergraduate
The final session of the day looked at postgraduate opportunities in global health. Dr. Fred Martineau from Global Health Network Alma Mata presented the network’s proposals for accredited training in global health in the UK, followed by Professor Andy Haines from the London School of Hygience and Tropical Medicine, who provided an excellent overview of the extensive list of Masters Degree in Global Health and related topics offered by the school. This was complemented by a presentation by Professor Phillipa Easterbrook, recently returned from the First Annual Meeting of the United States Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH), who provided an interesting comparison between the educational and training opportunities in the US and UK.
We are looking to involve students from across the UK to help GHEP work on the priority tasks mentioned above, so do get in touch if you would like to join any of the working groups that will draft GHEP’s proposals. We are also producing a Toolkit on how you can work with your medical school to get global health teaching included as part of the core curriculum, in SSCs and even new iBSc degrees.
If you would like to learn more about starting GHEP at your medical school come along to the GHEP workshop ‘Getting Global health on the curriculum at your university’, or visit the GHEP stall at the Medsin National Conference in Nottingham. Alternatively you can email ghep@medsin.org.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Oliver and Vanessa
Co-chairs Global Health Education Project 2009/10