Providing Multidisciplinary Global Health Education in Developing Countries
Purpose: The purpose of this abstract is to discuss experiences presenting clinical education at an inpatient rehabilitation hospital in the Dominican Republic (DR), provide strategies to integrate international education, and to identify barriers with implementation of clinical skills.
Description: Propel DR, a subsection of Mission Emanuel, is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to empowering communities in the Dominican Republic through education, custom wheelchair seating and positioning, and clean water initiatives. Every October, Propel DR, partners with physical therapists (PT), occupational therapists (OT) and assistive technology professionals (ATP) from throughout the United States (US.) These professionals provide multidisciplinary educational lectures and interactive lab sessions to PTs and OTs from across the DR. Topics are generated by the therapists in the Dominican Republic and include orthopedic and neurologic conditions. Lectures are translated into Spanish prior to arrival and translators are present for real time interpreting.
Knowledge translation in the international environment comes with inherent difficulties. Most notably, the language barrier is still very prevalent, despite the use of translators. This barrier makes collaborative dialogue more difficult during educational and laboratory skill sessions. Additionally, therapists in the DR have limited clinical resources in comparison to most US therapy centers. Adaptability to clinical resources available is key when providing education on treatment techniques and to promote integration strategies for daily practice. A third barrier is clinical encounters with regional diagnoses, not prevalent in the US, such as chikungunya. Integration of education regarding prevention of secondary disease complications due to limited or delayed medical interventions, provides a more comprehensive treatment approach.
Numerous articles have discussed service learning with doctoral students with regard to increasing clinical cultural competency. However, there are limited resources available regarding the impact of knowledge translation and global health initiatives on local and international communities.
Summary of Use: Our goal is to provide an overview of global health education, identification of clinical barriers, and to describe effective feedback methods to promote clinical integration on a global scale. These findings will be reviewed, as well as discussion of strategies for clinical knowledge translation into evidence based practice on an international scale.
Importance to Members: This special interest report is designed as an introduction to methods and barriers for international knowledge translation and global professional development.