Presentation delivered in the panel entitled "Global Health Education: Preparing for Global Interdependencies - Do We Teach Today's Medical Students the Right Skills for the 21st Century?" at the World Health Summit 2012 in Berlin, Germany, October 23, 2012. Watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14VhEg5WQkU&feature=share

1. Global Health Education
for the 21st Century
A Student’s Perspective
Ramon Lorenzo Luis Rosa Guinto, MD
Liaison Officer to the World Health Organization
Founding Coordinator, Global Health Equity Initiative
International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA)
Youth Commissioner, Lancet-University of Oslo
Commission on Global Governance for Health

3. Key Questions
• Who teaches global health?
• Whose global health analysis are we
teaching?
• How do we teach global health?
• What are the conditions in which we
teach global health?
• What kind of doctors do we want our
students to become?
• When to start teaching global health?

4. Alma Ata Declaration, 1978
…Health, which is a state of complete
physical, mental and social wellbeing, and
not merely the absence of disease or
infirmity, is a fundamental human right…
The existing gross inequality in the health
status of the… is politically, socially and
economically unacceptable…

5. The Contents of GHE
• Epidemiologic basis
• Environmental basis
• Social and cultural basis
• Political and economic basis
• Moral and ethical basis
• Plus the tools to make a difference

6. Values
• Justice and equity
• Human rights
• Action focus
• Systems thinking
• Futures thinking

7. Some Reminders
• Global health education is not just about overseas
electives – it is also about understanding and acting on
community issues backed with global knowledge and
tools.
• One model cannot be easily transplanted to another
setting – context matters!
• We don’t need additional information – we need a global
health education that liberates students from
conventional medicine and raises the level of critical
thinking.

8. More Reminders
• Global health education should contribute to the
achievement of expressed global health goals – not just
a floating appreciation of the theory and current situation.
• All other professions – including lawyers, economists,
political scientists, and engineers – should receive basic
global health education.
• Holistic global health education requires learning from
other disciplines – interprofessional learning is key!

9. More Reminders
• Global health education should never contribute to global
health inequities – especially in health workforce
distribution.
• Access to global health education should also be
equitable – there is a need to promote the vision to the
global South.
• The irony: medical students in countries where our
students often go for “global health learning” do not get
to enjoy the same experience

10. Reframing the
Question
• Do we want global health to be
merely incorporated into the
existing medical curriculum, or
should we transform medical
education as a whole in order to
meet global health needs?

11. University of
the Philippines
School of
Health Sciences
Leyte,
Philippines

12. Connecting the Streams

13. Role of Students in GHE
• Students are not apathetic – they are just afraid to look
pathetic!
• Repackage global health – it’s not something that we
want, but something that we need to understand and act
on.

14. Role of Students in GHE
• GHE development must be a two-way process –
students must be deeply engaged in shaping the
curriculum.
• If existing curriculum and institutions do not allow GHE,
students innovate and find new ways and alternative
venues.

15. Our mission is to offer future physicians a
comprehensive introduction to global health
issues. Through our programming and
opportunities, we develop culturally sensitive
students of medicine, intent on influencing the
transnational inequalities that shape the health of
our planet.

20. The Purpose of Medical Education
"Medical education does
not exist to provide
students with a way of
making a living, but to
ensure the health of the
community.”
Dr. Rudolf Virchow
Father of Social Medicine

21. HEALTH FOR ALL!
Thank you for listening!