Rede Unida, 10º Congresso Internacional da Rede Unida


Tamanho da fonte: 
Laboratorio di Mondialità: the approach of italian medical students to global health issues
Alice Perfetti, Alessandro Mereu, Laura Cuccuru, Marco Bonsano, Ardigò Martino

Resumo


Italian medical students have estimated the teaching of Global Health (GH) issues to be more important than their current representation in the academic curriculum at the university. The lack of teaching Global Health issues has been shown by several studies, e.g. the Doctors with Africa CUAMM- Segretariato Italiano Studenti in Medicina survey in 2007. In order to promote a healthier life for single patients or large populations, students have ascertained that classical academic curricula today do not place enough relevance on Global Health issues and their impact as socio-economic, political, demographic, juridical and environmental determinants, as well as the complex relationships between globalization and health in terms of equity, human rights, sustainability and international diplomacy. Instead of accepting the absence of any kind of GH teaching, students as well as citizens have taken action to promote GH teaching for medical students. As a first step, an extra-curricular workshop on Global Health issues was organized for the first time in Italy. This one weekend workshop called “Laboratorio di Mondialità” was aimed at medical students all over Italy. “Laboratorio di Mondialità” (LabMond) was a real revolution in Global Health teaching in Italy, as it put students in the middle of their own educational program. The main topics during this workshop were: global health, determinants of health, health inequalities, international cooperation, migrants medicine and the complex relationship between globalization and health. But LabMond is more than just a simple course in Global Health: it represents an educational opportunity for participants as well as for the organizers and the trainers. The organizational choice of a laboratory, rather than a course or a conference, aims to call into question the position of participants. "Laboratorio" is the best definition for this activity, as it underlines the importance of the students work on their own knowledge and our attempt to stimulate their curiosity to go deep into the subject. Since 2007 six LabMonds have been organized by SISM in collaboration with the Centre for International Health (CSI) and the Italian Global Health watch (OISG) thus enabling more than six hundred students to learn and improve on the issue. The general structure of LabMond consists of three parts: in the first part basic working knowledge is given to the students by guest speakers or other students; the second part consists of discussions and analyses whereas in the third part conclusions are drawn. The discussions within the students as well as with the expert speakers are crucial during the whole workshop. Teaching methodology is inspired by global health principles in terms of participation, equality, cooperation, justice and social cohesion. The workshop’s sessions are organized and conducted by students through small-working group sessions, interactive case studying, role play games, round tables and peer-to-peer education techniques. Some sessions are led by expert speakers as well. This concept is designed to pass on different perspectives on the issues as well as to allow for interactive moments. The experimentation is made in order to give some points of reflection about didactic methodology and to provide the audience with didactic skills. In order to organize this event a Scientific Committee was created. It is responsible for the creation of the event's agenda and the coordination of the speakers. The Scientific Committee called ‘Quelli di Bologna' holds regular meetings, in which not only the workshops are organized but also with the goal of sharing experiences, informations, skills and improve their proficiency in several topics related to Global Health. The Scientific Committee is engaged in the research of training aids and scientific literature on the Global Heath issues so that it’s available for free and for free sharing. Over the past 3 years, the students who participated in LabMond were working and training together in small groups in order to organize the LabMond sessions and to bring in their own faculties “small Labmonds”. The constitution of these “self-training groups” is the biggest revolution of LabMond. This innovation guarantees the transmission of the principles of global health to diffuse out of these workshops and into the daily life of the participants, thereby allowing them to keep on going with their education process and to transmit their skills to other students in their faculties. Thanks to these groups, students become the main characters. Every edition is characterized by the easy accesibility for medical students. This is possible due to the low cost fee (only 20 euros fee for a three-days workshop) and the reservation of, at least, two places for each faculties. For each event, special attention is given to the logistic aspect of the workshop in order to create a low cost event and to decrease its environmental impact. A low cost overnight-stay solution is selected and fair trade commerce products (or km zero) are used for making meals. One-way materials are not allowed and every participant has to bring his own dishes. Various strategies to reduce water consumption and to avoid the use of plastic bottles are adopted. To reduce paper waste only recycled paper is used additionally to the digitalization of pre and post evaluation tests send by emails. The LabMond is sponsored only by public institutions and SISM's partners. The “Laboratorio di mondialità” has three objectives: - To inform students about global health themes because the Medicine and Surgery syllabus in our country is often lacking this type of formation, despite the students’ high interest in it. - To provide the students with a new perspectives, which could enable them to open their eyes to a reality they have not had the opportunity of knowing. - To make the students more aware of health inequalities, acknowledging that it is also their duty to close the gap between the well-off and the poor. The main objective of the laboratory is to create a new generation of doctors, with the firm conviction that the right for health is a fundamental right of every human being. Making doctors aware between this this and the disparity of rights in reality, they are given the means to actively reduce it. SISM’s members believe that it's necessary to continue to support this process in which a lot of students are involved, in order to foster ethical thinking in the minds of students and future health-professionals. This enables students to engage in reducing health inequalities and injustices which nowadays contribute to the killing of people on a large scale. This support needs to come from other students involved in these changes but the change itself will never permanently come true without the participation of Universities; that's why we need to involve professors potentially sensible to these topics in this process. SISM, of course, throughout this process is working hard on the future class of teachers, in order to see the revolution that Italian medical education needs to face.