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GHEC Mission GHEC is a non-profit organization of health professionals, educators and institutions committed to addressing the health needs and human rights of populations around the world and to improving the ability of the global workforce to meet the needs of underserved populations. It accomplishes this mission through the promotion, development and expansion of high quality, culturally sensitive global health education for faculty, students and professionals worldwide.

Health profession students, residents and fellows are the reason why GHEC exists so it is essential that mechanisms exist for these groups to provide input to GHEC policies, programs and services. 

Two mechanisms now exist and more could be created, if deemed useful.  They are:

1)  Participation on the Board of Directors.  At present GHEC has two student Board members. Their term is 2 years long.

2)  Student Advisory Committee (SAC).  The main function of the SAC is to provide student* inputs into GHEC products, programs and services, and to ensure their high relevance to student interests.  These inputs may be in response to queries by GHEC or be initiated by SAC.  The Board will especially welcome opportunities to collaborate with student organizations on projects of mutual interest.  The Board looks to the SAC to help GHEC involve students in its activities and strengthen and advocate for global health activities on their campuses.

•         Be personally involved in activities relevant to global health

•         Have an active role in her or his student organization

•         Be able to attend the annual GHEC conference. GHEC will waive the conference  
          registration fee for one active SAC member from each student organization represented
          on the Committee. This year, the conference is in Cuernavaca, Mexico (tentative dates:
          April 16-18, 2010).

•         Be able to devote, on average, about 4 hours per month to SAC activities

•         Be able to serve on one GHEC committee, or project (see information below)

•         Be able to serve on the SAC for at least one year

•         Be able to commit to attending online conference calls every 2-3 months to update other
          SAC members on their progress and discuss any general GHEC business 

List of GHEC projects

(More information can be found at: http://www.globalhealtheducation.org/Pages/default.aspx - the right-hand side)

GHEC committees especially looking for student involvement:

•   Membership
•   Modules

Those marked with an * are those that could most benefit from help in the near term. 

Membership*: SAC member needed to lead and recruit general student members to the student sub-committee of GHEC’s Membership Committee. The student members of the GHEC Membership Committee will assist with development of appropriate benefits of membership, recruitment of new institutional members, and maintenance of institutional relationships. Students will serve as a sub-committee of the Membership Committee, helping to shape the GHEC strategy for the recruitment and retention of our members and the expansion of our membership efforts.

Reviewing learning modules*.  We are developing a semi-automated means whereby each module can be reviewed by at least two students and two peer reviewers.  Module authors will use this feedback to revise their modules.  In the late spring of 2009 we will start recruiting student and peer reviewers for the ~50 modules now on the website.  Student reviewers require no prior knowledge of the topics reviewed and will receive $25/review.  We ask individual students to review at least four modules to keep the total number of students that we have to interact with and reimburse down to a manageable number.  Stay tuned: we’ll post the information once the review procedures are operational.

Residency Guidebook*.  A major review and expansion of this 119 pp.  guidebook will start soon.  A core team of authors has been recruited.  They would appreciate having the views of students and residents regarding the Guidebook’s content, sequence, ease of reading, appendices, etc., and sections that need expansion.  The Guidebook may be reviewed in pdf form on GHEC’s website and to be most useful, we’d appreciate having these comments by early summer.

Residency Inventory*.  We’d like to have a searchable inventory of residencies offering a global health track.  The starting point is developing a form with standardized headings.  Residencies would be invited to complete the form and send it to GHEC for posting.  GHEC would make no judgments or recommendations, and descriptions would have to fit on one page.  We would like students and/or residents to propose the headings and provide guidance as to the information they would like to have available.

Global Health Competencies*.  A Joint US/Canadian Committee is currently reviewing the literature related to global health-related educational standards and competencies.  From this review and Committee discussions it hopes to provide guidance that can be useful to those developing curricula and teaching global health.  The Committee is first addressing the question as to what should be taught to all medical students, not just those electing a global health course(s) or field experience.  Later the Committee would like provide similar guidance for those planning more advanced global health training.  A draft report of the first phase of this project will be discussed at the April GHEC conference.  At various points in the evolution of this project we will post draft documents so that we may benefit from inputs by the membership.

Mentoring initiative*.  The Student Advisory Committee is exploring the possibility of a ‘mentoring program.’  The objective is to provide students without good access to mentors and/or student leaders with specialized interests, to link up with suitable mentors.  The way this program would work has not yet been defined, pending discussions by GHEC’s Student Advisory Committee.

Membership recruitment*.  We can provide information about the universities not yet members of GHEC.  Student members of university chapters of AMSA, IFMSA or other student organizations could contact university officials to encourage them to join GHEC.

Annotated website update*.  The validity of listed websites should be checked in 2009 and recommendations for additions, deletions, and perhaps new categories added.  A major update should be done in 2010, in collaboration with student organizations.

Website review*.  GHEC would very much welcome a careful and critical review of the presentation and layout of its newly re-designed website.  What improvements should be made?  What new information should be added?  What jumps and links are not working well?

Information Technology assistance*.  If there are any students with substantial IT skills we could very much use their help.  Tasks could include: design and management of a students-only section of the website; help with making the GHEC wiki and forum operational; serving as a manager / content screener of the open section of the website; managing updates of the annotated websites.

Curriculum Guidebook.  This 57 pp. guidebook, first published in 2005, was developed by IFMSA/AMSA/R4WH in collaboration with GHEC.  We want  to update this important document and have substantial Canadian input.  The update would start with a careful review and critique, aiming for a 2^nd edition by late 2010.

Clinical Case Studies Workbook.  This project started in January 2009 and a core team has been identified.  Once draft cases become available we want to have them reviewed and field tested by students, residents and faculty.  Experienced clinicians with extensive field experience in low resource countries may later be able to contribute cases.

Liability guidelines.  A number of universities have asked for guidance about potential liabilities incurred by sending students overseas and how to reduce risks.  I have accumulated some information on this point but a GHEC membership survey could generate more information which could then be pulled together and posted on the GHEC website for the benefit of all.

University/field site agreements.  GHEC members have been seeking guidance from others regarding the negotiation and drafting of MOUs (Memorandum of Agreement) with overseas field sites and partner universities.  GHEC would like to obtain and summarize information on these matters from its membership and optimally, provide a selection of illustrative agreements for adaptation.

Survey instrument inventory.  Many surveys have been made of student and resident global health interests and experiences, and to evaluate changes in career plans and attitudes as a result of these experiences.  Each survey questionnaire is a one-off instrument making it difficult to track changes over time and to compare program results across institutions.  Moreover, new survey authors may not benefit from the experience of predecessors regarding survey methods, instruments and problems.  GHEC would like to have a “bank” of survey instruments along with author contact information so that future surveys could benefit from the experience of predecessors.

Bibliography update.  This will start in early 2010 and will involve at east 3-4 students to help with the library search update and review.  The search/review process is both interesting and educational.

Help with the Mexico conference.  The 2010 conference will be in Cuernavaca, hosted by the Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública.  By late 2009 we would like to identify a small number of students willing to help with the logistical aspects of the Mexico conference. 

Any questions may be directed to Heather Thompson, Chair, SAC, at heather.dawn.thompson@gmail.com