A Healthcare Students Introduction to Global Health: Low- and Middle Income Countries

Aimed at healthcare students: medical, nursing, and allied professionals, the textbook covers a broad range of topics in Global Health as investigated and summarized by Cardiff University medical students completing a short course in Global Health. Global Health is an increasingly important aspect of the undergraduate medical curriculum but is rarely formally taught at undergraduate level.

It focuses upon health in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMIC). Chapters include: What is Global Health; changing demographics and disease burden; Humanitarian medicine, Aid; health in conflict; Sexual Reproductive Health; Gender Based Violence; child health; disability; cancer care; palliative care; infectious disease; neglected tropical disease; the climate crisis and sustainable healthcare, amongst others.

Professor Alison Fiander was appointed Chair of Obstetrics & Gynaecology at Cardiff University in 2002. Having worked in Sub-Saharan Africa for 4 years earlier in her career, Alison has a passionate commitment to mitigating global maternal mortality and morbidity. In 2015, Alison left Cardiff University to serve as the Clinical Lead for the Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (RCOG) Leading Safe Choices programme, imparting sexual reproductive health training to healthcare professionals in Tanzania and South Africa. She subsequently became the Clinical Lead for the RCOG Centre for Global Women’s Health overseeing the development of the RCOG Essential Gynaecology Skills course (now renamed Gynaecological Health Matters) for Low- and Middle-Income countries (LMIC).

Alison retired from the RCOG in 2018 but continues work as an independent consultant in Global Women’s Health in addition to teaching global health to both undergraduates and postgraduates and directing an on-line postgraduate diploma/MSc in International Women’s Health.

Ms Grace Fry is a final year medical student at Cardiff University. She has a longstanding interest in Global Health, especially the health of refugee and asylum seekers. She is keen that these topics gain greater prominence in the undergraduate curriculum.  

As a member of ‘Students for Global Health’ society committee, she co-organised a Cardiff University conference titled “Refugees: Welcome Here” in 2022. She is also a keen linguist and traveller, undertaking her Women, Child and Family medical placement in Nantes, France. On graduating, she plans to complete a Global Health/Women’s Health MSc with the intention of working in this field in the future.