Abstract
This comprehensive review examines the international literature on global medical education. Specifically, teaching and learning styles, transnational education, and potential challenges that arise with cultural and local differences are evaluated. Global medical education has the potential to serve local needs in resource-limited settings and set international standards for curriculum and accreditation. There are broad differences when comparing teaching styles between countries with a significant narrowing of teaching methods found when examined within a country. Learning styles differ greatly as well, and can be optimized when individual preferences for learning and local cultures are considered. As teachers and learners are increasingly brought together from different cultures, analyzing teaching and learning methods is essential to productive cross cultural medical education.
Highlights
In an era of increasing globalization, migration and connectivity, medical graduate and post-graduate education previously restricted to within country borders, has become a truly transnational affair
Post-graduate medical training has expanded boundaries; in the last two decades an increasing number of global health academic partnerships have formed between institutions across countries and continents as a way to improve access to specialty and sub-specialty training in regions where such access is limited [3]
This review examines the models of medical education, reviews the literature on how culture interacts with learning and teaching styles, and examines the current potential barriers and challenges to medical education in a global arena
Summary
A North American Obstetrician speaks through Skype to a classroom in Mbarara, Uganda while simultaneously lecturing inperson to a Boston, USA classroom on the topic of postpartum hemorrhage. The medical students and residents in Mbarara are quietly listening and diligently taking notes. The American-based students do not take notes but occasionally raise their hands to interject and ask questions [1]. The same lecture seems to be received differently from two groups of students and the Boston-based lecturer wonders if these different forms of engagement impact the lessons taught. Are both groups gaining the same level of knowledge from the lecture despite these differences? Perhaps due to the barriers of distance and Internet, or do cultural differences have implications for the learning Are both groups gaining the same level of knowledge from the lecture despite these differences? Why are these differences occurring? Perhaps due to the barriers of distance and Internet, or do cultural differences have implications for the learning
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