Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health, Baltimore, MD, US.
Makerere University Centre for Health and Population Research, Kampala, Uganda.
Ann Glob Health. 2022 Oct 17;88(1):88. doi: 10.5334/aogh.3687. eCollection 2022.
Short-term experiences in global health (STEGHs) are an important part of global health degree programs. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, travel was not possible for students planning to participate in the Johns Hopkins Center for Global Health's Global Health Established Field Placement (GHEFP) program in 2020. Working with willing faculty mentors, in-country collaborators, and students, the Center allowed students to complete their practicums remotely so that students could gain practicum experience despite not being able to travel, and faculty and collaborators could receive the planned support on their projects.
This evaluation aims to describe the experience of pivoting the GHEFP program from an in-person, in-country program to a remote practicum.
We analyzed program evaluation data from 30 students, 20 faculty members, and 10 in-country collaborators. Surveys for each group consisted of multiple choice, scale rating, and open-ended questions. The quantitative data was analyzed using Microsoft Excel to calculate survey response frequencies. The open-ended responses were analyzed for emergent themes.
The remote GHEFP experience enabled students to gain practice working on global health projects from a distance, but it came with challenges related to preparation, communication, shifting scopes of work, and contextualization. All participants would have preferred an in-person experience if given a choice, but most agreed that a remote practicum was better than not participating at all.
The remote program served its purpose during the height of the pandemic. Given the hybrid nature of global health today, many aspects of the remote practicum experience are helpful for global health training. Future iterations of remote STEGHs should initially be designed for remote work to ensure meaningful scopes for students that are helpful to faculty mentors and collaborators. Hybrid models may also be useful. Mutually beneficial twinning relationships should also be incorporated into remote and in-person STEGHs to foster a more equitable global health training environment.
短期全球卫生体验（STEGHs）是全球卫生学位课程的重要组成部分。由于 COVID-19 大流行，计划参加约翰霍普金斯全球卫生中心全球卫生既定实地安置（GHEFP）计划的学生在 2020 年无法出行。该中心与愿意的教师导师、国内合作者和学生合作，允许学生远程完成实习，以便学生能够在无法旅行的情况下获得实习经验，并且教师和合作者能够在他们的项目上获得计划的支持。
本评估旨在描述将 GHEFP 计划从实地、国内计划转变为远程实习的经验。
我们分析了来自 30 名学生、20 名教师和 10 名国内合作者的项目评估数据。每个组的调查都包含多项选择、量表评分和开放式问题。使用 Microsoft Excel 分析定量数据，以计算调查响应频率。对开放式回答进行了主题分析。
远程 GHEFP 体验使学生能够远程参与全球卫生项目的实践，但也带来了与准备、沟通、工作范围转移和背景化相关的挑战。如果有选择，所有参与者都希望进行面对面的体验，但大多数人同意远程实习总比不参加要好。
在大流行高峰期，远程计划达到了其目的。鉴于当今全球卫生的混合性质，远程实习体验的许多方面都有助于全球卫生培训。未来的远程 STEGH 迭代应该最初设计为远程工作，以确保为学生提供有意义的范围，这对教师导师和合作者都有帮助。混合模式也可能有用。还应将互利的双胞胎关系纳入远程和现场 STEGH 中，以促进更公平的全球卫生培训环境。
