Interprofessional Education Through Service Learning and Global Health in Health Professions

Interprofessional education through service learning and global health experiences for post-traditional health profession students is not well-documented. Service learning through the lenses of Ignatian pedagogy, critical consciousness, cultural intelligence, and social justice will be described to foster transformation for counseling, marriage and family therapy, nursing, pharmacy, and physical therapy students. Global Health Pathway is a concentration in the health professions college available for students who seek a transformative experience learning about and working with diverse populations locally or abroad.

1. Describe service learning, how it contributes to improved communities and transformed, culturally intelligent professionals, and examples of interprofessional service learning.

2. Guide participants through a Jesuit service learning framework that enables students to become transformed practitioners through greater awareness of self and of others and acting with justice. Participants explore cultural intelligence and reflective practices to foster personal and professional transformation through service learning experiences.

3. Describe the Global Health Pathway, how knowledge is integrated with action, allowing invaluable insight into contemporary global health issues through interprofessional coursework, service, and clinical experience. Domestic and international global health immersion provides educative and interprofessional experiences for students that also responds to the health needs of communities experiencing homelessness, minimal sheltering, poverty, limited access to primary and/or mental healthcare, and lack of prevention and education.

4. Guide participants through a logic model demonstrating how students gain understanding, practice, and confidence working with complex systems in partnership with those on the margins through reflective interprofessional service, clinical experience, and education and how students become transformed practitioners who advocate for justice by strengthening their ability to provide and address healthcare access.

5. Apply tools that foster the learner goal setting and reflection that contributes to personal transformation through service learning and global health experiences that is relevant to participants’ own institutions.