Global Health as “umbrella term” – a qualitative study among Global Health teachers in German medical education

Abstract

BackgroundThe increasing impact of globalisation on healthcare demands new knowledge, skills and attitudes from healthcare professionals. One consequence of this is the rise of Global Health (GH) programs in health education all over the world. In Germany no consensus exists on what GH is and how it should be taught. This study used a grounded theory approach. We conducted eleven in-depth interviews with GH teachers in German medical education to ask them about their views on Global Health and the approaches they took in teaching these topics. Data collection and Analysis informed each other and followed an inductive approach.ResultsOur research identified three major questions: (1) What is GH? (2) What belongs to GH? (3) How can GH be taught? A central finding of our study is the understanding of GH as an umbrella term. We show how this understanding helps clarify the relation between GH and Public Health, International Health and Tropical medicine. At the core of GH we see the supraterritorial determinants of health. Surrounding the core, we describe a wide variety of topics that are a facultative, but not necessarily a compulsory part GH. One of the key characteristics of GH within all its aspects is its multidisciplinary nature. Based on this understanding we present models about the content of GH, how it can be taught and how GH teaching improves and strengthens overall medical education.ConclusionsThis is to our knowledge the first study that conducts in-depth interviews with GH teachers to explore the practical understanding of GH in medical education. While the generalisability of our results needs to be subject of further research, the models presented can help shape the future discourse around GH and its integration into medical education.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1186/s12992-018-0352-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Global Medicine, Parasites, and Tasmania

“…The changing patterns in disease suggest a need for new conceptual models in medical training and medical education. There have been many attempts to frame the impact of globalisation on health [68] based on international health, public health, and tropical medicine [68][69][70]. During the period of our work in medical curriculum development and medical microbiology teaching the commoner categories included: tropical medicine, travel medicine, migrant medicine, and traditional and complementary medicine.…”

Öffentliche Gesundheit in Deutschland: Eine Perspektive des Nachwuchses

“…Studierende und Nachwuchsfachkräfte aus Deutschland und dem Ausland sollten daher vermehrt die Möglichkeit erhalten, während des Studiums, der Promotion sowie der frühen Berufsphase andere Gesundheitssysteme und Praktiken kennen zu lernen, um so gegenseitig neue Perspektiven und Impulse in die Weiterentwicklung des Gesundheitswesens einzubringen. Zudem sollte dem wachsenden Interesse an Global Public Health, das in der universitären Ausbildung in Deutschland spürbar ist, durch ein größeres Angebot an Weiterbildungsmöglichkeiten in Deutschland entsprochen werden [15][16][17].…”

Medical education: an Italian contribution to the discussion on global health education

“…As the Lancet Commission noted, the education of health professionals needs to be transformed [4]. In the past few decades, the spread of global health education in Europe and beyond has been extensively documented [5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20], but up until now the Italian perspective has not been well disseminated outside of Italy. For this reason, the authors present the work of INGHE of the past years and share with the scientific community some final considerations for future practices.…”