Extracts below:
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Difficulty studying laparoscopy in French reflects a larger problem
Minimally invasive surgery was pioneered in France, but, ironically, French-language training materials for such procedures are comparatively sparse.
Prior research has indicated that programs in Africa, home to most of the world’s French speakers, have the highest dependence on foreign-language resources in medical education.
These realities motivated a recent editorial in the World Journal of Surgery.
Lead author Callie K. VanWinkle, a University of Michigan Medical School student, became interested in the topic while working in the lab of Grace J. Kim, M.D., a clinical professor of surgery...
What are the effects of global medical training materials only being produced in certain languages?
VanWinkle: ... When you have materials only available in only one language, learning is restricted to those who speak that language. Inevitably, this leads to inequities and imbalanced power dynamics...
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Paper cited: “The Language We Use to Teach Surgery: Language Inaccessibility of Minimally Invasive Surgical Training in Francophone Countries,” World Journal of Surgery. DOI: 10.1002/wjs.12656
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wjs.12656
HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org