Tag Archives: AMSA

Social Justice: Embracing Global Health Complexities

Internationalizing Medical & Health Education

At the recent NAFSA Conference for international educators, the Colloquium on Internationalizing Medical Schools proved to be a forum marked by many thoughtful remarks, especially those of the opening speaker Edwin Trevethan, MD MPH.  Yet nothing struck me as much as the name of the school he heads–  Dr. Trevethan is dean of the St. Louis University College for Public Health & Social Justice.  The social justice part piqued my interest.  Social Justice is a term that did not receive enough exposure during my undergraduate and medical education, despite dedicated studies about global health, underserved care, and health equity. jessicanlauren nafsa 2013

Importance of Social Justice in Health Evolving

Why hasn’t this term gotten the play it deserves?  What does it mean anyways?  One of my favorite definitions of Social Justice is a “historically deep and geographically broad” understanding of gross inequities, power imbalances, and underlying causes of ill health.  Dr. Josh Freeman, the creator of the blog ‘Medicine & Social Justice’ offers further insight into definitions of justice, social justice, and how they relate to health and health care.  Social Justice has also been studied as one of the key ethical principles for students wanting to be involved in Global Health.  Increasingly there has been discussion on whether social justice should be a factor when selecting students for admission into medical school.

I think the reason Social Justice has not always made it into our medical and educational syntax is that it encompasses the utmost complexity.  Particularly in medicine we like things that we can boil down to cause and effect, test while controlling for variables, and fix with evidence-based antidotes.  Social justice doesn’t allow us to be logical and create such neat solutions.  Social justice demands we consider a host of influences on health, wellness, and disease.  It requires that we humble ourselves.  It requires we admit that problems causing health inequities worldwide defy the scope of one solitary discipline, or the involvement of just one prestigious university.

I want to commend St. Louis University and Dr. Trevethan’s leadership for their insight in going so far as to include social justice in name of their school of public health.  They, alongside other leaders such as CFHI partner association American Medical Student Association, demonstrate the fundamental ability to embrace the complexity of global health, and not unlike CFHI persevere with programming and partnerships that give social justice its due attention–both as a goal and as a lens through which to understand health.

At the annual NAFSA: Association of International Educators Conference CFHI was represented along with over 8,000 professionals who come together in late May each year to network and learn about today’s issues related to the fields of study and interning abroad.

The Power of IFMSA & The Global Health Placebo Effect

International Federation of Medical Students’ Associations (IFMSA) is not just another acronym in a field laden with catchy abbreviations- it is a groundbreaking organization that despite its 60+ years of existence is doing something that remains innovative- bringing together medical student colleagues from around the world to work together as peers.

IFMSA Meets in U.S. for the First Time in Decades

Dr. Jessica Evert, CFHI Executive Director & IFMSA Alumna, with other IFMSA Alumni

Dr. Jessica Evert, CFHI Executive Director & IFMSA Alumna, with other IFMSA Alumni

This year the setting for the IFMSA General Assembly is Baltimore.  Medical students from Sudan work alongside colleagues from the US, those from Panama collaborate with Poland, the interactions are endless.  As an alumna of IFMSA I got the privilege to join the meeting and reconnect with old friends from my days as IFMSA-USA Vice President.  IFMSA’s US affiliate is the American Medical Student Association (AMSA), who is also partnered with CFHI.  IFMSA is a great resource for AMSA members, especially those interested in global health.  Often the global health dialogue is dominated by Western voices.  IFMSA allows 1,000+ medical students from around the world to work face-to-face twice a year.  It democratizes global health and allows for crucial relationship development that is necessary for a unified global advocacy voice for health equity and justice.  It has the secondary effect of humanizing perceptions of the developing world- rather that breading pity; it engenders mutual respect between colleagues from both resource-rich and resource-limited countries.

CFHI Global Health Approach Shared & Praised at IFMSA

Child Family Health International (CFHI) was in great company during the IFMSA alumni meeting.   Attendees praised CFHI for its gold-standard model for global health education.  Colleagues from Ghana, Serbia, Philippines, Nigeria, and beyond approached me with gratitude for CFHIs important advocacy voice in the global health education field.

I was equally as impressed by the candid discussion about advocacy provided by Predrag Stojicic from LeadingChange.  Predrag distilled buzz words and espoused a platform for grassroots champion recruitment and leadership.  A thoughtful organization, The 53rd Week, took the stage to describe their pragmatic approach to evaluate and maximize short-term medical trips.  These trips are characterized by volunteers going to resource-limited communities, usually for 1-2 weeks to deliver medical care and related services.  While well intended, the global health community is increasingly leery of short-term volunteer experiences, as their impact has been questioned and downfalls revealed.

 The ‘Global Health Placebo Effect’

Lawrence Loh, co-founder of The 53rd Week, calls the appearance of impact enabled by short-term medical missions the “Global Health Placebo Effect.”  Under the strong leadership of Loh and co-founder Henry Lin, The 53rd Week is creating a platform for the multiple, disjointed teams who visit a community at different times during the year to coordinate their efforts to created continuity, sustainability, and an overarching orchestrated approach targeted towards upstream interventions. Concurrently, they are raising awareness of the risks of short-term medical missions and suggesting alternatives that may lead to more tangible and sustainable ‘help.’

The efforts of these great colleagues and the synergy with CFHI philosophical approach and model of running Global Health Education Programs has been inspirational!

Making Global Health Knowledge a Requirement for MD Students

A Post From CFHI’s Medical Director:

I’m just returning from conducting a workshop at the NEGEA Regional Conference. NEGEA is the Northeast educator’s chapter of the AAMC – a gathering of the people who oversee medical student and resident education. Just like many in global health medical education, they are grappling with how to get their hands around the subject and figure out how to increase collaboration.
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