Course Outline:
Duration: Four-week Special Study Module, followed by eight-week elective period in a developing country.
Aim: To offer students four weeks of teaching in international health prior to an eight-week structured elective in a developing country.
Background: All British medical students undergo a period of elective study near the end of their undergraduate training. The majority of students do their electives abroad, many in developing countries. However, students usually have little preparation or training for the problems they will see, or for the cultural and linguistic context. Students therefore often experience difficulties seeing below the surface to gain real insight and understanding of the situation in which they have found themselves. Whereas the period could be a valuable chance to gain an in-depth experience of health and healthcare developing countries, students' experiences are actually highly variable. The IHMEC International Health elective attempts to address this issue by offering interested students a programme designed to prepare them for the elective and to help them learn from their experiences.
Teaching: The International Health SSM is a 4-week module that links the medical student' elective experience outside the UK with an analysis of health related issues in developing and developed countries, in the context of global health.
The IH SSM focuses on a broad range of global issues, including:
• Globalisation and health
• Primary health care
• Refugees and health
• Civil Society, NGOs and health
• Poverty
• HIV/AIDS
• Millennium Development Goals and child health
• Access to medicines
• International health policy
• The health information gap
• Human rights and health
• Water and sanitation
• Global institutions and health
Speakers on the SSM come from a variety of disciplines: aid agencies, campaigning organisations, UCL academics and teachers from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Course Modules:
Elective period
The International Health Elective comprises the following components:
Clinical attachment: usually in internal/general medicine or paediatrics, although other specialities could be organised. This should be done for four weeks.
Community medicine: one or two weeks, if possible together with local medical students, to see health care settings different to the main teaching hospitals and to experience peer-to-peer learning.
Project: students do a project on an aspect related to international health that reflects a response to local needs.
Peer education: students are encouraged to establish contact with local medical students. Previous students have pointed out that this can be a good way to get to know the local culture and to understand the difficulties of being trained as a doctor in a different setting. Also, local students are always keen to help and offer support during the attachment, especially when communicating with patients if UK students do not know the local language. Local students are also helpful socially, to help students get to know the place where they will be based.
Debriefing: When students return we ask them to take part in a half-day session to evaluate and discuss the elective experience.
Electives are offered at the following institutions:
• Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences
• Lusaka, Zambia: University of Zambia School of Medicine, University Teaching Hospital
• Dhaka, Bangladesh: Gonoshasthaya Kendra
• Pune, India: KEM Hospital & Research Centre
• Kathmandu, Nepal: Kathmandu Medical College
• Pelotas, Brazil: Universidad Federal de Pelotas, School of Medicine
• Havana, Cuba: Instituto Superior de Ciencias Médicas de La Habana
• Cuenca, Ecuador: Facultad de Ciencias Médicas, Universidad de Cuenca
• Lima, Peru: Universidad Paruana Cayetano Heredia
Entry Requirements:
Royal Free and University College medical students in the fifth year of their medical training.
Contact:
Dr Jaime Miranda
j.miranda@ucl.ac.uk
+44 (0) 20 7288 5347
