The Design and Implementation of a Multidisciplinary Global Health Residency Track at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine

Abstract

The Mount Sinai Global Health Center established a new multidisciplinary Global Health Residency Track (GHRT) in 2006. The goal of the GHRT is to provide participants with a foundation in global health issues and population-based health care, a chance to develop basic research and public health skills in the field, and guidance for career development. The authors describe how the GHRT was created, present its structure, and discuss their experience implementing this new program. Other selected global health residency training programs are also reviewed. The Mount Sinai GHRT is a two-year program that comprises a didactic curriculum, with participants required to take selected classes in the Master of Public Health Program of the Mount Sinai School of Medicine of New York University, and "field experience," which consists of a public health project that is implemented during a two-month elective period during the second year. Core competencies include (1) epidemiology and research skills, (2) health disparities, human rights, and cultural competency, (3) needs assessment and project development, (4) tropical medicine and infectious disease, and (5) reproductive, maternal, and child health. Nine residents were selected from four Mount Sinai residency programs to participate in the GHRT in its first year, and, during the winter of 2007, senior residents conducted public health projects in the Dominican Republic, India, Kenya, and East Harlem. All components of the track performed well in evaluations. An outcomes survey is ongoing to track career choices among graduates and to identify barriers to continuing involvement in global health.

A Ten‐year Program Evaluation of an Emergency Medicine Scholarly Track in Education Using a Qualitative Approach

“…5 Some success has also been shown with measuring outcomes of scholarly tracks in other specialties-an obstetrics track at a family medicine residency program found that its residents performed similarly to obstetrics and gynecology residents on examination scores and number of procedures performed, 6 and a new global health track at a different program achieved high scores on resident evaluations. 7 Deficiencies can also be identified-a pediatrics residency with a primary care specialty track found that graduates did not express universally high levels of comfort with all areas of pediatrics emphasized by the track. 8 While emergency medicine scholarly tracks have anecdotally been well received by residents and program leadership, there have been few outcomes-based evaluations of these scholarly tracks published in the literature.…”

Global Mental Health as a Component of Psychiatric Residency Training

“…Among residents who participated in the Duke University Medicine Residency International Health program, 1/3 of the residents changed their career plans, deciding to work in public health, with disadvantaged populations, or in academic settings [5].…”

Global health training starts at home: A unique US-based global health clinical elective for residents

“…One of the first multidisciplinary graduate medical education programs in Global Health, the GHRT incorporates residents and faculty from different disciplines (Anandaraja et al 2008;Landrigan et al 2011). A critical aspect of training in these competencies is providing global health experience within the US.…”