Samuels Hannah, Rojas-Luengas Vanessa, Zereshkian Arman, Deng Shirley, Moodie Jenna, Veinot Paula, Bowry Ashna, Law Marcus
MD Program, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Department of Family and Community Medicine, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Can Med Educ J. 2020 Dec 7;11(6):e90-e98. doi: 10.36834/cmej.69339. eCollection 2020 Dec.
The Global Medical Student Partnership (GMSP) is a medical student-led international initiative to promote accessible global health learning. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the GMSP program in meeting its learning objectives.
Canadian and international medical student pairs met online monthly (January-May 2018) to discuss global health-related medical cases. Students then reviewed cases with local GMSP peers and faculty experts. A mixed-methods study was performed to evaluate whether the objectives of the program had been achieved. 26 of 32 (81.3%) students completed a questionnaire, and 13 (40.6%) also participated in one-on-one semi-structured interviews. Descriptive statistics and thematic analysis were used to analyze students' perspectives on skill development through GMSP.
GMSP students agreed or strongly agreed that international collaboration and communication skills were more important to them following program participation (92.3%, 92.3% respectively). Many expressed that after GMSP, they knew more about their healthcare system, practices abroad and how to solve complex health issues (92.3%, 84.6%, 61.5% respectively). Qualitative data showed GMSP improved students' communication and presentation skills, provided a foundation for international relationships, fostered appraisal of diverse health systems, and furthered students' understanding of health advocacy.
Our findings demonstrate that GMSP met its original objectives by providing students with opportunities to engage in international collaborations and to further develop their skills in advocacy, communication, and health-systems research. This program may be an important addition to medical education as it makes use of technology and peer-to-peer exchange to enable global health learning.
全球医学生伙伴关系（GMSP）是一项由医学生主导的国际倡议，旨在促进全球健康学习的普及。本研究旨在评估GMSP项目在实现其学习目标方面的有效性。
加拿大和国际医学生结对每月（2018年1月至5月）在线会面，讨论与全球健康相关的医疗案例。学生们随后与当地的GMSP同伴和教师专家一起回顾案例。进行了一项混合方法研究，以评估该项目的目标是否已经实现。32名学生中有26名（81.3%）完成了问卷调查，13名（40.6%）还参加了一对一的半结构化访谈。使用描述性统计和主题分析来分析学生对通过GMSP实现技能发展的看法。
GMSP项目的学生同意或强烈同意，参与该项目后，国际合作和沟通技能对他们更为重要（分别为92.3%、92.3%）。许多人表示，参与GMSP项目后，他们对自己的医疗系统、国外的医疗实践以及如何解决复杂的健康问题有了更多了解（分别为92.3%、84.6%、61.5%）。定性数据表明，GMSP提高了学生的沟通和表达能力，为国际关系奠定了基础，促进了对不同医疗系统的评估，并加深了学生对健康倡导的理解。
我们的研究结果表明，GMSP通过为学生提供参与国际合作的机会，并进一步发展他们在倡导、沟通和医疗系统研究方面的技能，实现了其最初的目标。该项目可能是医学教育的一项重要补充，因为它利用技术和 peer-to-peer 交流来促进全球健康学习。
