Global Health Education

Training medical students in global health education through framework of entrustable professional activities

Global health education aims to improve health standards and achieve health equity by reducing health disparities across national boundaries. In the context of global health education, entrustable professional activities (EPAs) provide a clear framework for defining specific, observable activities that a student must be able to perform independently, without supervision. To equip medical students with global health-related competencies, framing EPAs becomes crucial. This task begins with identifying the core competencies essential for effective global health practice. In conclusion, EPAs are expected to play a defining role in global health education. The need of the hour is to engage all stakeholders, systematically select the EPAs that are crucial for delivering global health education, and train medical students in the desired competencies to empower them to deliver effective healthcare services.

Rethinking Global Health Education in Plastic Surgery Residency

Surgical disease is now among the most common, preventable, and growing contributors to the global burden of disease. The attitudes of trainees toward global surgery and the viability of a global surgery as an academic track have blossomed. More optimized experiences within residency education are necessary, however, to prepare the next generation of global surgeons. The field of plastic surgery is thus at an important crossroads in the effort to incorporate global surgery into training programs in a uniform fashion across the country. The recent American Council of Academic Plastic Surgeons meeting in February 2020 was dedicated to identifying strategies that will enhance the adoption of global surgery practices within plastic surgery. In this article, we discuss the principles, themes, and ideas that emerged from this session, and further develop concrete initiatives believed to be potentially fruitful. Some have been discussed in other surgical disciplines or presented in isolation to the plastic surgery community, but never as a cohesive set of recommendations that take into account the background and shortfalls of the current model for global health education in the 21st century. We then introduce five recommendations to optimize learner education: (1) clarification of learner expectations and roles; (2) domestic teaching for optimization of field experiences; (3) expansion of longitudinal, formal rotations; (4) strengthening of the role of research; and (5) integration of program financing.

Advancing Social Work Education for Health Impact

Social work education plays a critical role in preparing social workers to lead efforts that improve health. Because of the dynamic health care landscape, schools of social work must educate students to facilitate health care system improvements, enhance population health, and reduce medical costs. We reviewed the existing contributions of social work education and provided recommendations for improving the education of social workers in 6 key areas: aging, behavioral health, community health, global health, health reform, and health policy. We argue for systemic improvement in the curriculum at every level of education, including substantive increases in content in health, health care, health care ethics, and evaluating practice outcomes in health settings. Schools of social work can further increase the impact of the profession by enhancing the curricular focus on broad content areas such as prevention, health equity, population and community health, and health advocacy.