Global health education at home: Canadian medical students’ perspectives after learning alongside Haitian peers

Abstract

Purpose constructivist thematic analysis, while practices and privilege, negotiation of To explore how host medical students exploratory, was sensitized by their power dynamics, and perception of learn from visiting foreign students, by knowledge of contemporary frameworks Haitian students as agents—and three reporting on a global health program of global health competencies, a components of the learning experience that has invited two or three Haitian postcolonial understanding of power that facilitated transformation and medical students each year since 2013 to relations, and three key concepts growth—working in groups, common a Canadian medical school for a summer (agency, cultural humility, and reflexivity). learning objectives, and informal social anatomy program. gatherings. Results Method The authors found two phenomena Conclusions In 2017, the authors conducted a related to bidirectional exchange: the Bidirectional programs may have qualitative descriptive study that nature of the relationship between implications for Canadian students’ collected data through one-on-one, Canadian and Haitian students, and perception of the agency of international semistructured interviews with 10 elements of the learning experience medical learners and may prompt self-Canadian students, who participated that facilitated transformation and reflection that manifests in a range of in the Université Quisqueya–McGill growth. There were three important ways, including an experience of culture University collaborative, a bidirectional components to the nature of the shock at home. These tensions seemed global health education initiative, relationship between Canadian to create space to practice reflexivity and 2013–2016. The authors’ critical and Haitian students—reflection on cultural humility.