Skip to main content

Table 2 Key messages from this study

From: Analyzing international clinical education practices for Canadian rehabilitation students

Implications for global health internship programmes:

The main barrier to implementing preferred or ideal models of ethical and sustainable global health internships was investment in adequate human resources to develop and coordinate more coherent systems.

Comprehensive programmes of pre-departure training and post-internship debriefing are crucial, and require teaching faculty to have skill sets in diverse content areas (e.g., debates in international development, specific knowledge of training site, profession-specific knowledge) and multiple forms of knowledge (e.g., factual, reflexive).

Partnership development with educators at host institutions requires not only the sustained commitment of time by Canadian faculty (typically over multiple years) but also particular skills and insights related to global health ethics.

Implications for future research:

The WEIGHT Guidelines may be adapted for use as an interview guide for qualitative studies exploring best practices related to the ethics of global health activities (see Table 1).

Metrics are required to make explicit the costs (including financial, human resource, time diverted from clinical care, etc.) incurred by all parties in global health education collaborations. This is not yet common practice, but is a crucial step toward transparency and equity.

Researchers must critically reflect on the limitations of common research methods for understanding perspectives and realities in settings very different than their own (e.g., for host partners). Alterative paradigms (e.g., postcolonial approaches) may have much to offer.