The Global Health Primer for Doctors is an eight-week online course aimed at early-career doctors who are interested in a career in global health. It will provide a foundational knowledge base, teach relevant critical skills, and generate a network of clinicians to prepare you for future work within the field.
Course objectives
- To define global health and issues pertaining to global health such as health inequity within the current world landscape
- To develop critical analysis and appraisal skills and apply this to scientific papers relevant to global health, and to break this down to a digestible level for local communities
- To analyse clinical scenarios and create appropriate investigative and management plans for parasitological infections
- To discuss public health strategies for the control of parasitic infections
- To analyse disease elimination and eradication strategies and identify appropriate diseases to be targeted for this
- To develop a network of like-minded people, interested in global health, who can learn from each other and work together to solve problems
- To develop teamworking skills within the online environment
Who should apply?
Any early-career doctor who would like to work within the field of global health, or who has an interest in global health and would like to learn more.
As the course delivery is fully online, we expect our audience to be one which continues to work full-time throughout the course, remaining in their home country (or the country in which they work), allowing them to continue to earn a living whilst also studying part-time on an affordable, high-quality course.
Teaching and assessment
This is a fully online course, with a mix of asynchronous activities, as well as live sessions which we strongly encourage you to attend.
Much of the teaching has been designed to be interactive, to enable you to (virtually) meet other students on the course and to develop networks whilst gaining fundamental learning for a foundation in global health.
There will be a series of formative assessments throughout the course, mainly based around the live and interactive days, to which you will need to have contributed in order to gain your Certificate of Completion at the end of the course.
Course content will be centred around four modules; Module 1: Critical skills; Module 2: Parasitology; Module 3: Disease Elimination and Eradication; and Module 4: PRIMER! (covering hot topics in global health)
A Certificate of Attendance will be provided.
Each module has approximately 20 hours of learning attached. Every 1-2 weeks there will be a live, synchronous session delivered via Zoom, each of which lasts for 4 hours. All live sessions are in the morning and starting at 9 am and finishing at 1 pm (UK time). The rest of the learning will be asynchronous. Between live sessions will be a series of team tasks to work on, for which you will need to meet up with your team at a time that suits you.
You are expected to attend a minimum of 4 of the live sessions to gain the certificate of completion at the end of the course. We hope that by sharing these live dates with you now, you will be able to arrange study leave to attend them. We would strongly suggest ensuring you can attend the first session when you will meet key people including your tutor and team who you will work with for the duration of the course. The live dates and times are listed below:
- Wednesday 12th March 2025 - 09:00 - 13:00 (UK time)
- Wednesday 26th March 2025 - 09:00 - 13:00 (UK time)
- Wednesday 2nd April 2025 - 09:00 - 13:00 (UK time)
- Wednesday 16th April 2025 - 09:00 - 13:00 (UK time)
- Wednesday 23rd April 2025 - 09:00 - 13:00 (UK time)
- Wednesday 7th May 2025 - 09:00 - 13:00 (UK time)
100% of students on our 2024 course would recommend the course to friends and colleagues. 2024 testimonials:
"Really enjoyed getting to know people from different backgrounds with similar interests, really enjoyed the primer sessions as felt very relevant topics within global health. Enjoyed hearing the speakers talk about their careers and the paths they took to get to where they are. Also thought the non-synchronous sessions on Moodle were very good quality"
"Online content was excellent- nicely structured, well designed to be a comprehensive but not overwhelming primer to the basic ideas and debates in the field. Guest speakers- lots of very interesting guest speakers of varying backgrounds. A great change from normal work routine"
"[I enjoyed] working with a diverse range of people from all over the world and hearing their experiences, having the opportunity to learn about things I would otherwise get very little exposure to working in Scotland, and developing skills in areas I’d previously felt I lacked in - e.g. a basic introduction to epidemiology & critical appraisal"
"I loved the content. Moreover, all the people were really supportive. In the beginning, I was feeling uncomfortable because English is not my first language and I don’t have a huge career but afterwards, I feel that I could contribute as much as the rest"
"Working in a Team with people from all parts of the world and Sharing our different perspectives and experiences. Learning from high-quality resources and high-quality tutors. Being interactive and stepping out of my comfort zone"
"I am really grateful to Becky and her team for putting together this course. It’s been an amazing learning journey and I hope it continues to grow and inspire more healthcare professionals to embrace global health"
"[I most enjoyed the] the variety of content covered. Opportunity to develop and learn within a team. Staying within the same team for the whole course. Wide range of speakers and inspiring career advice"
Applications for 2025 are now open and can be made via our online application form.
Entry criteria
The Global Health Primer for Doctors is open to doctors who hold a medical qualification from a recognised medical school in any country who are registered for medical practice in that country. The number of participants in our 2025 course is limited to 75.
Places are not allocated on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Applicants must have a good standard of written and spoken English and of English comprehension.
Please write a statement explaining why you would like to do the course, what you hope to gain from doing the course, and highlight any previous experiences you think would make you a good fit. When applying for discounted fees, please include proof of status instead of your CV. This can be confirmed with a passport and proof of current residence.
Please read LSHTM's Admissions policies prior to submitting your application.
Many of our previous students from the UK and Ireland have successfully accessed their £800-£1000 study budget to help to pay for the course fees. The course will count as an 'aspirational course' and we, therefore, recommend you are organised in applying for this as early as possible.
We would strongly advise that when you apply for your study budget you carefully outline how it links in with your curriculum and will help you to therefore achieve curriculum objectives. As an example below we have outlined how the course might link to the foundation curriculum. We would also advise outlining how you think the course might help to further your career - which will be individual to you!
HLO 1: Holistic planning and clinical assessment – clinical topics are taught within the course, including infectious diseases that may be seen in the UK and abroad such as measles, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, soil-transmitted helminths, and yaws.
HLO 2: Sharing the vision – the course is based around teamwork within a cross-cultural team with participants from around the world, and will therefore develop any doctors’ communication skills, particularly within the online environment (which is increasingly a means of communication within medicine)
HLO 3: Ethics and law – we cover ethical issues which impact health globally and within the UK including access to medicines, decolonisation and the impact of multinational corporations on health, as well as UK-focussed ethical scenarios including refugee health. Continuing professional development – participants on the course have the opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills alongside work, and to develop research skills through the first module of the course in particular which includes how to read a paper, why to read a paper and identifying bias in studies. Understanding medicine – the course will definitely help any foundation doctor to understand the breadth of medicine more clearly, particularly with a focus on often neglected diseases that impact underserved populations
Please note fees for low-and-middle-income countries are already subsidised. There is no additional funding or discount available for this course from LSHTM for any fee tier.