How we developed a locally focused Global Health Clinical Preceptorship at Weill Cornell Medical College

Internationalization of Medical Education-a Scoping Review of the Current Status in the United States

This article explores the current status of internationalization of medical education in the United States. Dominant themes of articles published from 2000 to 2018 indicate that common formats are institutional partnerships, international learning at home, and student mobility programs. Critical analysis on the basis of internationalization of higher education, recommendations, and future perspective is given.

Should we use preceptorships in undergraduate nursing education?

BACKGROUND

Clinical learning experiences are the cornerstone of undergraduate nursing education as they allow students to apply theory to practice and help them develop as competent practitioners who are prepared for the realities of diverse, complex, and ever-changing practice environments.

PROBLEM

The traditional clinical teaching model, where small groups of students work with educators who are on-site facilitating learning, has numerous issues and thus there have been calls for reform. This Creative Controversy focuses on one reform option, the alternative clinical teaching model of preceptorships, which has gained popularity in recent years.

APPROACH

Current evidence surrounding preceptorships in undergraduate education was examined and critiqued.

CONCLUSION

Despite their popularity, there is a lack of robust evidence surrounding preceptorships and the motivations for using this model remain questionable. Future study is needed so preceptorships are implemented according to evidence-based teaching practices and not clouded by inappropriate motivations. The author challenges readers to question their practices and work to positively contribute to the science and practice of nursing education.

An International Partnership of 12 Anatomy Departments - Improving Global Health through Internationalization of Medical Education

Background

At a time of global interconnectedness, the internationalization of medical education has become important. Anatomy as an academic discipline, with its close connections to the basic sciences and to medical education, can easily be connected with global health and internationalization of medical education. Here the authors present an international program based on a partnership between twelve anatomy departments in ten countries, on four continents. Details of a proposed plan for the future direction of the program are also discussed.

Objective

The aim is to improve global healthcare by preparing future global healthcare leaders via early international networking, international collaboration and exchange, intercultural experience, and connecting two seemingly distant academic disciplines - anatomy and global health - via internationalization of medical education.

Methods

Based in the anatomy course, the program involved early international collaboration between preclinical medical and dental students. The program provided a stepwise progression for learning about healthcare and intercultural topics beyond pure anatomy education - starting with virtual small groups of international students, who subsequently presented their work to a larger international audience during group videoconferences. The above progressed to in-person visits for research internships in the basic sciences within industrialized countries.

Findings

Students appreciated the international and intercultural interaction, learned about areas outside the scope of anatomy (e.g., differences in healthcare education and delivery systems, Public and Global Health challenges, health ethics, and cultural enrichment), and valued the exchange travel for basic sciences research internships and cultural experience.

Conclusions

This unique collaboration of international anatomy departments can represent a new role for the medical anatomy course beyond pure anatomy teaching - involving areas of global health and internationalization of medical education - and could mark a new era of international collaboration among anatomists.

Cultural Competency Interventions During Medical School: a Scoping Review and Narrative Synthesis

Many medical accreditation bodies agree that medical students should be trained to care for diverse patient populations. However, the teaching methods that medical schools employ to accomplish this goal vary widely. The purpose of this work is to summarize current cultural competency teaching for medical students and their evaluation methods. A scoping review was completed by searching the databases PubMed, Scopus, MedEdPORTAL, and MEDLINE for the search terms "medical education" and "cultural competency" or "cultural competence." Results were summarized using a narrative synthesis technique. One hundred fifty-four articles on cultural competency interventions for medical students were systematically identified from the literature and categorized by teaching methods, length of intervention, and content. Fifty-six articles had a general focus, and ninety-eight articles were focused on specific populations including race/ethnicity, global health, socioeconomic status, language, immigration status, disability, spirituality at the end of life, rurality, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. About 54% of interventions used lectures as a teaching modality, 45% of the interventions described were mandatory, and 9.7% of interventions were not formally evaluated. The authors advocate for expansion and more rigorous analysis of teaching methods, teaching philosophies, and outcome evaluations with randomized controlled trials that compare the relative effectiveness of general and population-specific cultural competency interventions.