Global Health | Family Medicine | School of Medicine

The Department of Family Medicine (DFM) at Queen's University supports a definition of Global Health (GH) that is broad in scope:

“Global Health refers to health problems, issues and concerns that transcend national boundaries, may be influenced by circumstances or experiences in other countries, and are best addressed by cooperative actions and solutions. As such, Global Health does not refer solely to health issues that arise in impoverished areas of the world. It encompasses aspects of political, economic and social dynamics and diseases that substantially impact the health of populations within Canada as well as those in other countries.”*

As a way of integrating these principles into the core FM curriculum, GH competencies have been framed within the CanMEDS-FM role of Health Advocate. This is defined by the College of Family Physicians of Canada as the responsible use of expertise and influence to advance the health and well-being of individual patients, communities, and populations.

To supplement the core experience that is provided during the first two years of residency, a third year program of Enhanced Skills in Global Health (ES-GH) has been developed for those wishing to pursue more intensive learning. It is expected that these physicians will use this extra experience to pursue a career working in more resource-poor settings and with more disadvantaged populations. To this end, several streams of concentration are offered to ES-GH residents, allowing for flexibility in meeting individual learning needs as well as providing a basic grounding in GH principles.

*Creating Global Health Curricula for Canadian Medical Students Report of the AFMC Resource Group of Global Health, March 2007