Practicum

An integral part of the Global Health track experience is the 6-month overseas practicum. The practicum is designed to put classroom concepts into context and to give students the international experience necessary to pursue further work beyond U.S. borders. The practicum will consist of three parts—an internship position with a local university, government entity, or NGO; a preceptorship with an on-site Columbia University faculty member; and a monthly seminar series.

The Internship

Ideally, the internship site chosen should strengthen students’ abilities in all or most of the following areas:

Program Planning: Internship positions should elucidate methods for establishing, maintaining and evaluating health initiatives in the country of choice and highlight the importance of country and regional specificity;
Technical Expertise: Skills obtained through the internship should be tangible, developing the students’ professional skill set in ways that will be seen as beneficial to the international public health community (e.g., use of statistical software; advanced data collection and analysis skills; community advocacy and organizing; project evaluation; grant writing, etc.);
Public Service: Provision of hands-on service provision to local communities is encouraged and should be integrated into the internship experience whenever possible. This may include participation in outbreak investigations or on-site program evaluation;
Cooperation: Projects should foster a high level of cooperation among the student, her preceptor and the larger community and its leaders, demonstrating the multilateral nature of effective health promotion; and
Language: Ideally, the practicum experience should provide language immersion (or significant exposure) in both administrative and field duties.

The Preceptor

The on-site preceptor functions both as an internship advisor and as a link to Columbia, coordinating and supervising day-to-day work, aiding students in assuring the success of their stay abroad and for seeing to it that the objectives and goals that students set out are being met. Most importantly, the preceptor should be involved in securing data for use in writing the Master’s thesis, Master’s Integrative Project or Capstone Paper. Both during and after completion of the practicum, the preceptor will submit written evaluations of students' progress and performance.

The Seminar

The practicum seminar, designed by the Global Health Track staff and the on-site preceptor, may take many forms, as dictated by the exigencies of the site (e.g., the number of students interning at any one time). The seminar is designed to aid students in retaining an academic focus while abroad and in analyzing and processing the new experiences that students will encounter. The seminars may take the form of instructional field-trips, topic-specific tutorials, or presentations that provide insight into the culture and needs of the local community. Ideally, seminars should be given once or twice per month.

The Sites

Currently, the Global Health Track has arrangements to implement structured, supervised practicum experiences with organizations in three regions— Africa; South Asia; and Latin America and the Caribbean. All Global Health Students are required to choose a practicum project in one of the sites available. However, keep in mind that the Track is concentrating its efforts on establishing itself in its current sites, but will expand its efforts into other regions as the program matures. Selected past projects which students have chosen include: assessment of the effectiveness of an innovative strategy to provide antiretroviral therapy safely, effectively and with high levels of adherence through a TB therapy program; analysis of data on sexual risk behavior and pregnancy from HIV seroincidence studies; and design and implementaiton of HIV prevention programs among Intravenous Drug Users (IDUs).

The department of Population and Family Health also has established sites at the following locations:

Ghana Health Service Program

The Ghana Health Service will provide students with opportunities to contribute to strengthened communications related to health systems. Professional staff of the Dodowa Health Research Centre will be coordinating students in this practicum.

In Ghana, students participate in a short of orientation in Dodowa (about one hour away from Accra), with opportunities to visit the various research operations currently underway there. Each student will develop a Scope of Work that may incorporate specifics, such as the delivery of cell phone and text messaging technology to: pregnant women link services to their requests for care; nurses so that they can transmit and receive data; and community health workers to assistant with health education and emergency referral.

International Family AIDS Program in La Romana, Dominican Republic

The International Family Aids Program (IFAP) supports clinical services, research, and education services that focus on improving direct care and treatment for HIV-infected children, mothers and fathers. Possible practica site locations include a regional referral family AIDS clinic (Clínica de Familia MIR), the largest provider of AIDS treatment in the Dominican Republic serving a diverse population of clients including female sex workers, immigrants, and non-HIV positive family members of clients; a major urban public hospital (Hospital Provincial Francisco Gonzalvo); an adolescent prenatal and comprehensive care center; a sugar cane company owned health center (Centro Médico Central Romana), and a rural HIV, primary health care, and health promotion outreach project with migrant Haitian sugar cane workers (Buen Samaritano Hospital and various Bateyes). Past projects have included participation in a newborn HIV seroprevalence study; studying ways to remove obstacles to prenatal HIV counseling and testing; identifying predictors of adherence to complex regimens of anti-retroviral therapy; field testing taste-masking products to improve the palatability of liquid anti-retrovirals for children; and determining HIV knowledge and attitudes.

Ntataise, South Africa NGO Program

Ntataise, meaning “to lead a young child by the hand” in Basotho, is an independent NGO founded in South Africa in 1980 that trains women in disadvantaged rural communities to gain the knowledge and skills needed to establish effective early childhood development (ECD) programmes for young children, including child development, health, nutrition, HIV-AIDS education, management/budget development, and community empowerment.

NGO’s need systems, strategies, and curricula (prenatal-to-3) that are sensitive to the cultural context of rural South Africa, and a vehicle for grassroots community engagement, adult development, organizational capacity building and support, monitoring and evaluation, advocacy, and policy change on local, provincial, and national levels. Students will work with PI’s to: further develop the community-based participatory research/evaluation agenda; collect reliable data and develop storage strategies; conduct 10-day training of trainers, preschool practitioners, parents, and community stakeholders in prenatal-to-3 development, education and care; monitor implementation after training; develop and support local community systems for sustainability and advocacy; conduct evaluation of the project; and develop and produce a community resource guide.

Rakai Health Sciences Program in Uganda

This program provides public health students in the Heilbrunn Department of Population and Family Health opportunities to participate in a comprehensive HIV education, prevention and treatment program in a high-risk setting in Africa. Students spend their time in an assigned department, working an average of 25-30 hours a week, applying skills acquired through their public health training. In cases when students work directly with the target population, they broaden their understanding of cultures and health issues of the population of Rakai and its surroundings. In addition, the student projects contribute to the work of the Rakai Health Sciences Program.

The Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo (DR)

This program provides public health and health students of Columbia University with opportunities to gain understandings of the culture, and the social and health factors affecting Latinos on both side of the “Air Bridge” (NYC and Santo Domingo). Columbia students work in an NGO or health facility in Santo Domingo for nine weeks, for an average of 25-30 hours a week. This experience enables students to apply the various skills acquired through their public health training. By working directly with the target population, students broaden their understanding of the lifestyles, culture, and health issues of the population of Santo Domingo and its surroundings. The goal of this collaboration is to prepare the next generation of health professionals to better serve Latinos.