RE: Request for global health case studies based on field experiences
(Note: faculty and students are welcome to forward this message as appropriate; we hope it will have a wide circulation)
 
As you may know GHEC is developing a variety of teaching case studies for both non-clinical and clinical situations.  This email concerns the non-clinical studies.  Many medical schools require students to prepare a report on their summer experiences abroad and even when not required, students often keep journals for their own use.  We’d like to ask that students going overseas consider writing up an event or situation they observed or which challenged them for use as a case study, appropriate for discussion in a global health class.  If any of the studies relate to the 32 topics (see outline below) now planned for a modular Global Health Introductory course, now under development, so much the better.
 
By way of general guidance* we are looking for case studies that:

• Are based on a community, public health, epidemiological, environmental, sanitation, administrative, ethical or health system problem, preferably one you observed directly or experienced yourself
• Do not require substantial clinical knowledge or skills
• Can be discussed in no more than one hour, though some studies may have 2-3 component parts, each building on the previous one, and which can be reviewed in several class sessions
• Have specified learning objectives and additional background information that can help instructors get the most value from the study
• Have no more than ~4-6 pp. of case study presentation
• Are based on a real or postulated, but plausible, situation.  If based on a real situation, provide information about the decisions made and/or the ultimate outcomes.
• Have (or could have) supplementary notes to help instructors get maximum value from the discussion

*Guidelines are suggested but not required.  You are free to deviate from them if your case study is best presented in a different way.

We hope students will go to their field placement with a ‘prepared mind,’ looking for challenging and/or surprising situations from which they learned a lot, and which can be educational for others, too.  Please send your draft studies to Ted MacKinney [tmackinn@mcw.edu] and Tom Hall [thall@epi.ucsf.edu].

Next steps: In the early fall we will review submitted studies and provide initial feedback.  For submissions with good potential we will work with the authors to get the case study into ‘publishable’ (on GHEC’s website) form.  Authors of accepted studies will be fully acknowledged.  We will pay at least $50* for each accepted case study on completion of necessary editing. (*Final amount depends on number of acceptable studies and available funds)
 
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“INTRODUCTION TO GLOBAL HEALTH” MODULAR COURSE

1. Section I.  Health and Development: An Overview (5)
• Health and Development
• Health determinants
• Measuring health and disease
• Population characteristics, growth and health
• Environment and health
2. Section II.  Communicable and parasitic diseases (3)
• Global burden of communicable disease
• Global burden of parasitic disease
• Major programs for dealing with communicable & parasitic disease
• Supplemental modules (6)
• Gastrointestinal diseases
• Respiratory diseases
• Tuberculosis
• Malaria and other parasitic diseases
• HIV/AIDS
• Vaccine preventable diseases
3. Section III.  Non-communicable diseases and injuries (4)
• Global burden of non-communicable diseases
• Major programs for dealing with non-communicable disease
• Nutrition and Nutritional Disorders
• Injuries: Intentional and unintentional
• Supplemental modules (2)
• Cardiovascular disease
• Cancer
4. Section IV. Prioritis, Programs, Players (4)
• Health systems organization
• Health systems resources and resource constraints
• Primary health care: Concepts, methods, trends
• Global health 'players' and their programs
• Supplemental modules (1)
• Health systems financing
5. Section V. Vulnerable & high priority populations (3)
• Maternal and reproductive health
• Child health
• Natural and humanitarian emergencies
• Supplemental modules (1)
• Especially vulnerable populations
6. Section VI. Working in Global Health (3)
• Planning an overseas field placement or career
• Ethics, professionalism and human rights
• Working in a cross-cultural context

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