Virginia 2008 - Summary of Annual Meeting Outcomes

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A major focus for U21 Health Sciences over 2008-2009 is ongoing development of the U21 UN MDG initiative, as outlined in the U21 Health Sciences UN MDG Declaration [PDF 28.9kB]. Following the workshop in Charlottesville, the UN MDG interest group now comprises representatives from nursing and physiotherapy, to advance the essential UN MDG course content for health sciences students as well as medical students. This group will work with key international bodies and the broader U21 Health Sciences membership to devise course content and to pilot the course, and a report on the process and outcomes will be prepared for presentation and discussion at the 2009 meeting in Korea. The dentistry group will explore involvement in the U21 UN MDG initiative at their 2009 meeting. The University of British Columbia will lead the development of an overall evaluation framework, and a major aim of the interest group is to develop a coordinated engagement and communication strategy, with strategic links to the broader U21 network and relevant international bodies.

An application for seed funding for the initiative will be considered and determined by the U21 Health Sciences Executive upon submission of a business case from the UN MDG steering committee, and the steering committee will work with the U21 Presidents' UN MDG group, towards securing appropriate resources to animate the strategy outlined in the Declaration, over the next year and beyond.

The Executive acknowledged the importance of interprofessional involvement and input in the development of the UN MDG introductory course and also noted the synergy between the UN MDG initiative and the proposed interprofessional e-health project to link with a less economically developed country (LEDC) to explore ehealth success and needs, and to learn and understand how best to support ehealth within that context.

In 2008-2009, work will be undertaken to develop robust mechanisms to manage future student placements in the U21 telehealth for under-served communities initiative, and linkages with the Swinfen Charitable Trust network will be explored. A major focus for the e-health steering committee will be the development of strategies to ensure momentum on e-health policy within the WHO e-health working group.

Ongoing curriculum and e-health initiatives include U21 Dentistry's project designed to promote BLOG format dialogue and collaboration between dental students internationally, with the aim of facilitating dental students to develop professionalism, global awareness and global citizenship. The project currently includes students from the University of British Columbia and the Universities of Melbourne and Birmingham. A forensic odontology e-learning project using web-based delivery has been positively evaluated by participating students in Melbourne and Birmingham and this project will be developed further over 2008-2009. The on-line forensic odontology course approach is likely to be used as the model for a new project being led by dentistry at the University of Melbourne involving the use of oral medicine web-based lecture material for dental students in developing countries. In response to the keynote address on foreign credential recognition strategies from a global perspective, delivered during the meeting in Charlottesville, dentistry colleagues will revisit the topic of the effect of globalization on the dental workforce at the 2009 meeting of the Association of Dental Education in Europe.

Work on projects and grant opportunities relating to ehealth and telerehabilitation in physiotherapy will continue in 2008-2009 and will include collaboration between the University of Queensland and the University of Nottingham.

Student exchange was discussed by the medicine group and the nursing group in Charlottesville and student exchange has been flagged by dentistry and physiotherapy as a topic for discussion in Seoul in 2009. Overcoming issues of course equivalence, cost, timing, and indemnity, U21 nurses have implemented a programme of final-year student exchange between the University of Auckland and the University of Virginia, and nursing student exchange between the University of Auckland and the University of Queensland is proposed for 2009. In addition, a 'virtual student exchange' initiative involving groups of nursing students at Lund University and the Universities of Auckland, Birmingham, Nottingham, and Singapore is about to commence. Using a web-based platform, this virtual exchange project will facilitate participating students to network internationally, explore the health care systems of other countries, and debate global health care issues.

Work on documenting and disseminating U21 Health Sciences projects and initiatives continues. Global e-health steering committee members are contributing authors to a book focusing on successful telehealth solutions in the developing world to be published by the Royal Society of Medicine Press in February 2009. A paper based on a study of interprofessional e-health initiatives around the U21 network by the Interprofessional e-health steering committee has been submitted for publication to the Journal of Interprofessional Care. Following the meeting in Charlottesville, the nursing group will refine a draft paper on benchmarking clinical teaching within an international context, prior to submission to a referreed journal.

The 2009 U21 Health Sciences meeting will be hosted by Korea University in Seoul and is scheduled to take place in the week beginning 12 October 2009. The meeting programme will be devised in conjunction with the U21 Health Sciences Executive Committee over the coming months. Details of any associated events, including a proposed leadership workshop, will be provided when available.