By Donald M. Pedersen, PhD, PA-C
PAEA GHEC Liaison

Pedersen

More than 450 individuals from 22 different countries traveled to Cuernavaca, Mexico, to attend the 19th Annual Global Health Education Consortium (GHEC) Conference/1st Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Global Health, from April 9-11. The conference theme was "Alliances for Global Health — Learning From South-South Collaboration." More than 150 posters were presented, with three days of lectures, workshops, and topic tables. There was also plenty of time to network and learn about what PA programs are doing internationally.

With my wife, Kathy, a member of the GHEC board, I joined GHEC Executive Director Tom Hall, MD, and board member Pierce Gardner, MD, for dinner prior to the conference, and we had a productive discussion about the potential for collaboration between our organizations. Dr. Hall and I agreed to co-author an article on GHEC for submission to the Journal of Physician Assistant Education. I also attended the GHEC board meeting and extended an invitation to have a GHEC representative attend our Annual Education Forum this fall in Baltimore. Here are the highlights from the board meeting of GHEC's work and activities:

• Leaders from GHEC and the Consortium of Universities for Global Health (CUGH), a new organization (2008) that shares a similar mission and vision to GHEC’s, are making progress on a potential merger. Leaders from both organizations are meeting to work out the many details to combine the two groups. GHEC is committed to keeping student involvement a high priority. The PAEA liaison relationship is also important to the GHEC board.
• GHEC currently has 80 modules available on its website on topics germane to global health, and it is working on a more detailed set of 32 modules that could form the basis of an "Introduction to Global Health" course for all health professions students. GHEC is also developing a series of 100 case studies in global health and, with the Kaiser Family Foundation, is working to produce a set of mini-tutorials.
• Development of a residency guidebook is under way; this will help medical residents understand the many facets of global health. There is a chapter devoted to PAs written by GHEC board member Kathy Pedersen.
• GHEC is among the constituencies providing input to the Global Health Core Competency Development Project, which is being developed by the Association of Schools of Public Health. 
•  One of the outcomes from this project will be competency standards in global health. For more information about this project, click here.
• GHEC will help to launch a program being developed by an alliance of six African countries, the African Alliance for Health Equity. The program will utilize innovative medical training via the web to build capacity. There will be a need for faculty from the United States to be involved in clinical teaching.

A personal highlight for me was to meet and have a chance to talk at length with Dr. Jack Bryant, who wrote the 1969 landmark book Health in the Developing World. Now in his 80s, he was recognized with the GHEC Distinguished Service Award. He and his wife, Nancy, continue to work in the area of early childhood development with infants in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya.

As always, there was a sizable medical student contingent, and Kathy and I met Stephanie Brock, a PA student from the University of Kentucky, who was selected to serve on GHEC’s Student Advisory Committee along with a number of medical students.

In keeping with years past, the conference was extremely informational, broad in scope, and truly inspirational. There is a tremendous opportunity for PAEA faculty to collaborate on teaching modules and cases and to benefit from existing GHEC resources, which can be found on the GHEC website.