Our latest focus group meeting was hosted by Dr Padmini Murthy at New York Medical College School of Public Health. The discussion centered on Core Competencies in global health.

Participants shared their institutions’ current approach to core competencies and we discussed the need for, and feasibility of, a formalized set of core competencies to guide GH education throughout the US. It became obvious from our discussion that the concept of core competencies has varying interpretations ranging from a set of values integrated throughout a program, to a group of required curriculum topics, to a required practical skill set. Relevance of any set of competencies also varied depending on the level and discipline of the educational program. It was agreed that a shared set of basic competencies that represent core GH public health concepts would be a useful foundation to which programs could then add discipline-specific competencies to reflect the needs of their trainees. Interestingly, GHEC and the Association of Faculties of Medicine Resource Group on Global Health have recently called for establishment of a committee to develop core competencies in global health beginning with undergraduate medical education. The attached documents and links provide information from different programs on the current focus of their GH educational offerings, including a draft outline of core GH competencies jointly created by the programs that participated in this focus group.

To learn more about the New York Global Health Educators groups, click here