FMSS Pre-Departure Training
Global health and international health are areas of growing interest among students. Some of them with a particular interest in the field will participate in international internships. Faced with this growing interest, the Bureau des relations internationales (BRI) of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMSS) of the University of Sherbrooke has identified pre-departure training as a priority for any student doing an internship at the University of Sherbrooke at an international level.
For its part, thanks to the success of its clinical immersion program in global health, the SCOI has wanted since 2011 to share its experience and support the faculties of medicine of Quebec to equip themselves with a rigorous pre-departure training program addressing more than simply logistical aspects: these programs had to address ethical aspects, cross-cultural and sociological competencies of development and the philosophy of global health.
Faced with these common objectives, the FMSS initiated a partnership with the SCOI in spring 2012 in order to equip itself with a quality program for the preparation and supervision of international internships in medicine carried out by its student population. Thus was born the FMSS / SCOI Pre-departure Training Program, inspired by the training program of the SCOI pre-departure program and which now allows the two organizations to accelerate their learning speed in order to offer relevant training that meets the needs of students and the realities of the environments that will be visited.
The 2017-2018 program
This year, the BRI will offer on two occasions a pre-departure training weekend for international internships with, a few months after these, a day of feedback on experience and achievements. This training is offered to students of the different programs of the faculty who plan to go on an internship abroad, whether as part of a credited internship or not (often summer internships), especially for an internship in a low or middle income country; however, students who are not planning such internships, but who have an interest in global health, may also participate.
Program Objectives
The objective of the program is to provide adequate preparation to all students of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Sherbrooke who will participate in an internship so that they are aware of the limits of their role as well as of the commitment of their presence, so that they are able to face the challenges of intercultural communication in the healthcare relationship and that they do not have a negative impact on their internship environment.
The expected short-term results are the awareness of the students concerned for a beneficial impact in their internship environments abroad. In the long term, we hope to see a significant impact on the interests and fields of practice of students as well as on their way of practicing medicine. These results are difficult to assess quantitatively, but they will be assessed qualitatively through the “Day of feedback on experience and achievements” part of the program.
For More Information
Anne-Lou McNeil Gauthier
Coordinator of the FMSS / SCOI pre-departure training program
[email protected]