U of L medical students may travel to low-resource countries and complete service learning medical electives while earning credit towards graduation.Overseas service learning electives available to qualifying U of L medical students are as follows:

• IDEP-911 Global Health  I:  Students traveling on group service trips.

• IDEP-928 Global Health II:  Students who are upper level and requesting independent travel

• IDEP-927 Global Health Research:  Students who are not seeing patients but performing lab, public health, or other research
• IDEP-929 Global Heath - International Academic Experience:  Students enrolling in another university abroad for credit

As mandated by the UofL SOM Education Policy Committee, the Global Education Office has formalized a mandatory Pre-Departure Training (PDT) curriculum.  This curriculum is mandatory for all medical students (years 1 – 4) traveling under any of the above elective courses. The PDT curriculum is embedded into each of the above elective courses.

The PDT curriculum consists of five (5) modules:

1. Travel Safety and Personal Health
2. Cultural Humility and Ethical Considerations
3. Language Skills
4. Clinical Skills
5. Personal Reflection

These modules are facilitated using various educational modalities including small group sessions, didactic lectures,  journal articles, handbooks and E-learning.  The first four (4) modules may be completed in any order.

Confirmation of completion will be closely tracked by the GEO office using the following:  RedMed quizzes, RedMed case study review, attendance sheets, and MyLeaps documentation.

IMPORTANT: In order to receive elective credit for the IDEP Global Health Medicine experience, all medical students enrolled in any global health medicine course must complete: the first four (4) PDT modules BEFORE departure and the Personal Reflection module within thirty (30) days AFTER return to US.

Completing all modules of  Pre-Departure Training should take  approximately 13-19 hours.