Global Ambassadors for Patient Safety Toolkit

Creating Ethical Partnerships

Students and faculty explore abroad

Audience

This section is ideal for Education Abroad Professionals, International Education Organizations, Safety and Legal Officers. The tools found in this section will help you assess organizations abroad to partner with. It gives tips on setting expectations and creating solid contracts that ensure safe and ethical practices.

Creating Ethical Partnerships

The tools found in this section will help you identify quality organizations to partner with. It gives tips on setting expectations and creating solid contracts that ensure safe and ethical practices. See the sections listed to the right for specific tools on the topics listed—including checklists, contract examples, stories and examples... there are a few things that should be considered, especially if those opportunities are going to involve public health or healthcare.

For US institutions looking to partner with organizations to provide study abroad opportunities, there are a few things that should be considered, especially if those opportunities are going to involve public health or healthcare. One place to begin is with the Forum on Education Abroad. This organization is made up of a number of organizations who are committed to improving education abroad for U.S. students. According to the Forum on Education Abroad, they are a 501(c)(3) non-profit, membership association recognized by the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission as the Standards Development Organization (SDO) for the field of education abroad.

A Growing Demand to "Help"

Students are often motivated to travel to under-resourced communities so they can "help" people. At the same time these students often lack any skills or experiences that will allow them to provide meaningful help and would be better off going as a learner acquiring knowledge about other cultures and about themselves. This growing demand among students for experiences in medical environments has led to a proliferation of organizations ready to meet that demand.

Some organizations provide students with package experiences that bring them into an under-resourced community to serve a variety of functions inside a temporary clinic. Often those organizations have no real connection into the communities and may actually be undermining the existing healthcare system in the area. A great deal has been written on this topic challenging the idea that these experiences serve anyone except the organization that is making money.

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