A Unique Global Health Elective for Pre-Clinical Medical Students

Abstract

North American medical students are increasingly seeking global health clinical field experiences very early in their training. These experiences can be greatly improved by appropriate preparatory didactic courses. The challenges of designing a course like this for early-stage medical students are considerable. No medical school appears to offer a brief, intensive didactic course encompassing both biological and psycho-social determinants of health designed for application to real-life scenarios in resource-poor global contexts by medical students with limited basic science and clinical background. This paper describes a course, "Human Behavior and Disease in Tropical Developing Countries" (FCH 735) offered at Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine (JCESOM) at Marshall University that fits these criteria. The course, taught by a family physician, is offered to medical students as a forty-hour, one-week summer elective after the first year. It employs a distinctive pedagogical strategy and organizes material according to relevant human behaviors. Students have performed well on written and oral evaluative exercises. Nine students' reactions to the course were further explored confidentially, using qualitative research techniques, by a peer not enrolled in the class. The students' comments affirmed that the course's goals had been achieved. FCH 735 is a unique global health course offering that appears to meet the challenges faced in designing a robust preparatory didactic global health course for early-stage medical students. Replication and application of the course's methodology in other settings and to other aspects of pre-clinical medical school curriculum might be beneficial.