10 July 2007
Latin American, Caribbean Health Workers Aided by U.S. Training
Critical thinking skills vital for modern medicine, teacher says
Colón, Panama – Robert Leitch has a simple message for the scores of health care workers he is training as part of the U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort’s tour of Latin America and the Caribbean: question everything.
Leitch says one of the problems in the countries he is visiting is an educational system that teaches children to memorize information from lectures and reproduce it on exams rather than teaching critical analysis, problem solving and self-driven learning.
“The way they teach here is not suited to modern medicine,” he said in a July 8 interview. “The subject is too big and complex.” The body of knowledge is constantly growing and evolving, he said, and health care professionals in the modern world must know how to search for, rather than recite, answers dictated to them by professors in a classroom years ago.
Leitch is leading four groups of medical volunteers from the nongovernmental organization Project Hope. Each group of 20 volunteers is spending one month aboard the Navy ship to help provide health care services and training throughout the region.
Leitch says there is a danger that Comfort’s mission could breed resentment among local health care providers. U.S. doctors arrive and provide high-quality health care services to the local population, he says, and when the ship leaves, local health care professionals may feel marginalized and unappreciated. Leitch believes the solution to this problem is to empower the local health workers through capacity-building exercises.
Leitch uses interactive teaching methods to get the doctors, nurses and paramedics in his classroom thinking on their own and answering questions rather than passively absorbing information. He says the people of the region are perfectly capable of appreciating this learning style and, in fact, become very enthusiastic once they are given the freedom and encouragement to think creatively.
He considers his role as that of a facilitator, presenting new ways of thinking and directing his students toward further learning opportunities. “It’s my job to give them the map and point them in the right direction,” he says.
For Leitch, the right direction is the Internet.
He says most people in the region know how to use the Internet to download music and read the news, but very few realize the wealth of medical knowledge available on the Web. He likes to start his students with basic Google searches and chat groups and take them through the Web sites of major health institutes, universities and medical journals to open their eyes to the amount of easily accessible data and information they have at their fingertips.
He wants them to understand that learning is not a classroom experience that ends with a diploma, but rather a way of life -- and one they can pursue easily if they set their minds to it.
“‘Question everything’ should be the mantra of every doctor and nurse,” he said.
He points to Wikipedia as a Web site that reflects the new educational culture. Multiple users develop encyclopedia entries on different topics based on a process of open collaboration, questioning and debate. He says this sort of creative, critical thinking is at the core of American innovation.
Leitch says the Internet could help stem the flow of brain drain from developing countries as well. He says a major reason top doctors move to the developed world is easier access to continuing education, research and publishing opportunities. With the Internet, however, there are virtual universities that allow people to study and publish from anywhere in the world.
Leitch says the medical personnel and instructors aboard the Comfort are learning as much from the experience as the local health care providers with whom they are working. “The whole ship is learning,” he said. Doctors and nurses are learning how to deal with medical situations unique to the developing world, and instructors are learning about the specific challenges local health care providers face in doing their jobs.
Project Hope offers training in numerous areas according to the requests of local health care providers. These include such topics as medical crisis management, telemedicine, pediatric care, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
The U.S. Navy hospital ship Comfort is on a four-month tour of 12 nations in Latin America and the Caribbean, providing primary medical services, minor surgeries, clinic rehabilitation, medical equipment repair and training in each port.
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