tailieunhanh - Global Health in Medical Education: A Call for More Training and Opportunities

Expanding nursing education programs at all levels is essential to ensuring access to quality health care for the world’s population. The easing of the nursing shortage in some nations is a direct result of the global financial crisis and should not be used as justification to cut funding for entry-level and advanced programs that prepare professional nurses. Given the aging of the population and a large wave of retirements projected for the nursing workforce, action must be taken now to ensure that an adequate supply of nurses is available to avert a global crisis in the future. As leaders. | Global Health Global Health in Medical Education A Call for More Training and Opportunities Paul K. Drain MPH Aron Primack MD MA D. Dan Hunt MD MBA Wafaie W. Fawzi MB DrPH King K. Holmes MD PhD and Pierce Gardner MD Abstract Worldwide increases in global migration and trade have been making communicable diseases a concern throughout the world and have highlighted the connections in health and medicine among and between continents. Physicians in developed countries are now expected to have a broader knowledge of tropical disease and newly emerging infections while being culturally sensitive to the increasing number of international travelers and ethnic minority populations. Exposing medical students to these global health issues encourages students to enter primary care medicine obtain public health degrees and practice medicine among the poor and ethnic minorities. In addition medical students who have completed an international clinical rotation often report a greater ability to recognize disease presentations more comprehensive physical exam skills with less reliance on expensive imaging and greater cultural sensitivity. American medical students have become increasingly more interested and active in global health but medical schools have been slow to respond. The authors review the evidence supporting the benefits of promoting more global health teaching and opportunities among medical students. Finally the authors suggest several steps that medical schools can take to meet the growing global health interest of medical students which will make them better physicians and strengthen our medical system. Acad Med. 2007 82 226-230. The world has become increasingly interconnected and globalization now affects virtually every person s life. Increases in the flow of people products services and information between and among countries and continents are having a dramatic influence on the world s health and health care The global migration of people and the .