A pilot experience of common European infectious diseases curriculum for medical students: the IDEAL summer school

• Published in: Future microbiology Vol. 14; no. 5; pp. 369 - 372
• Main Authors: Charlier, Caroline, Wolf, Federica I, Vlieghe, Erika, Planquette, Benjamin, Damme, Pierre Van, Gaetano, Katleen de, Buffet, Pierre, Henry, Benoît, Cevik, Muge, Leen, Clifford, Laurenson, Ian, Cameron, Helen, Ogavu, Joseph, Nabankema, Evelyn, Omona, Venice, Valnaud, Pauline, Mackintosh, Claire, Johannessen, Ingólfur, geertruyden, Jean-Pierre Van, Jeunne, Claire Le, Cauda, Roberto
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Future Medicine Ltd 01.03.2019
• Subjects: Antibiotics; Antimicrobial agents; College students; cooperation; Curricula; Drug resistance; Epidemiology; Europe; Global health; Globalization; Higher education; Infectious diseases; Initiatives; Learning; Measles; Medical students; Microbiology; Occupational health; Schools; Simulation; summer school; Teaching; Tropical diseases; Vaccines; Italy; Uganda; United Kingdom > UK; France; Europe; teaching; summer school; Europe; infectious diseases; cooperation
• DOI: 10.2217/fmb-2019-0037
• ISSN: 1746-0913

To foster students’ awareness of the upcoming challenges and to teach ways for handling those issues, we need to create a single community and abolish the current barriers hampering the circulation of students or teachers among our institutions, like those raised by heterogeneous curricula (considering infectious diseases could be taught from 3rd to 6th year undergraduate students), non-English-based teaching and subsequent nonrecognition of foreign curricula by medical schools. The subject of infectious diseases includes a wide array of knowledge such as epidemiology, physiology, clinical skills, microbiology and therapeutics. [...]it is often taught in a fragmented manner, largely lacking a global perspective of the interrelations crucial for strong comprehension. Last but not the least, our students are not trained to address the challenges raised by anti-vaccine attitudes in many European countries, which leads to the re-emergence throughout the continent of preventable diseases like measles (12). [...]we developed an international infectious diseases course that now involves six institutions from five countries (Paris Descartes University, France; Università Cattolica di Roma, Italy; NHS Lothian, UK; Antwerp University, Belgium; Mother Kevin Postgraduate Medical School, Nsambya, Uganda and Lacor Hospital, Gulu, Uganda). [...]this pilot experience provides a working model to address the challenges we are facing in an ever-changing landscape of global health.