VDGM: VASCO DA GAMA MOVEMENT

GLOBAL HEALTH

In the increasingly interdependent world of the twenty-first century, global health is on our doorsteps and in our consulting rooms. People travel, and diseases move beyond national borders more rapidly than ever. Family doctors increasingly serve multicultural societies with diverse needs. As physicians we have a powerful role as health advocates, which requires engagement with issues of globalization, health inequalities, climate change and political instability; but how can we get started in global health education? What is global health? Is it relevant to family doctors? These were questions debated at a recent Wonca World Conference workshop in Prague, at which educationalists and global health aficionados teased out some of the important issues involved in ‘globalizing’ family doctor training.

THE WORKSHOP

An international faculty, including representatives from the European Academy of Teachers in General Practice / Family Medicine (EURACT) and the Vasco da Gama Movement, as well as colleagues from the USA and Canada, ran the workshop. They aimed to raise awareness of the relevance of global health to primary care, encourage more family medicine training schemes to offer global health educational content and inspire those who attended the workshop to ‘think globally, act locally.’

Workshop delegates were presented with a short introduction to global health training in primary care and two presentations about how this is being achieved in Canada and the USA. However, the main focus of the session was on enabling attendees to share ideas and experiences. Within small groups delegates debated questions of ‘What can you learn about family medicine by meeting colleagues or patients from abroad?,’ ‘What is global health and why is it relevant to general practitioners?’ and ‘What kind of global health training would be valuable for GP trainees?’ The key points raised within each group were shared with the larger group. At the end, each delegate was asked to generate action points by reflecting on ‘What can we do to improve global health opportunities (Supplementary Appendix Table 1. available online only, at http//www.informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13814788.2013.845746)’

A wide range of benefits of global health training were identified by delegates, and a strong sense that this was important for all family doctors, not just those travelling overseas, but also particularly for those working with marginalized and underserved populations.

Hand-outs were provided electronically for those wishing to pursue an interest in global health further, including links to relevant articles, web sites and books for further reading (Supplementary Appendix Table 2. available online only, at http//www.informahealthcare.com/doi/abs/10.3109/13814788.2013.845746).

OUTCOMES

This workshop showed that education in global health is a truly international endeavour with applicability across geographical and cultural barriers. At the end of the workshop there was a strong sense of the need for unification in advocating global primary care, with a feeling that much can be achieved starting from a grassroots level. We hope that by implementing the action points generated, and sharing and following examples of best practice, such as the USA and Canadian models, we can ensure our future family physicians are trained to face the healthcare challenges of a globalized society.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors should like to thank all the workshop facilitators and participants whose input helped shape the content of this article, in particular: Luisa Pettigrew, Greg Irving, Robert Burman, Yvonne Van Leeuwen, Roar Maagaard, Neil Arya, Jessica Evert, Francine Lemire, Scott Loeliger, Katherine Rouleau, Christine Gibson and Zuzana Vaneckova.