Global health curricula in medical schools

Abstract

To meet the demand for increasing capacity of the global health (GH) workforce many medical schools worldwide are in the process of establishing GH curricula. Still, there is little consensus as to how to train future physicians with the skills, attitudes and knowledge required to meet the currents gaps in GH practice, policy, education, advocacy and research. Thus, the co-authors of this paper, all keenly interested and involved in achieving better GH education for medical schools, organized an open retreat to help address this. This paper summarizes the processes required and provides additional recommendations to fill this gap. Steps taken by the Medical School for International Health, a school which focuses on GH, and other schools and organizations (e.g., NOSM, GHEC, THEnet,) to establish GH competencies, education and training approaches, as well as outcome monitoring, and integration of teaching with communities, are reviewed. After guidelines were provided , we addressed topic areas important to GH medical education, such as competencies, planning methods of GH inoculation in curricula, GH clerkships, curricula monitoring and evaluation and principals of community interaction. We reviewed existing resources and processes in each area, identified gaps, noted barriers to implementation, and put forth recommendations for each topic area.