From Monday’s Chronicle of Higher Education:

“Over the past decade, the number of American students in health fields going abroad has nearly tripled, with many opting for programs that take them out of the classroom and into clinics and hospitals. But as participation has increased, so, too, have educators’ concerns.

Far too often, experts say, students are providing patient care—conducting examinations, suturing wounds, even delivering babies—for which they have little or no training. Indeed, as competition intensifies for medical-school slots, some students may actually be going overseas for hands-on experience they could not get in the United States, in hopes of giving their applications a competitive edge.”

The article includes a link to the University of Minnesota’s online orientation for students preparing for global health experiences, a resource they have made free for students from other campuses. Related resources on this site include:

• Judith N. Lasker, Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University, shared a summary of her upcoming book on international health volunteerism.
• Dr. Lasker has also been kind enough to share guidelines for international service trip participation, How to Have the Best Possible Global Health Volunteer Trip.
• The issues raised in the Chronicle piece and in Dr. Lasker’s research point toward what we are working to address through the dialogue and standards development for Fair Trade Learning.
• The numerous resources on power and privilege. Use the search box on the right!

We will be posting updates this week from the annual conference of the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement (and the pre-conference on community impact in global service-learning). Please like us on Facebook or Follow us on Twitter to stay updated.