Global Mental Health: Five Areas for Value-Driven Training Innovation.
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: In the field of global mental health, there is a need for identifying core
values and competencies to guide training programs in professional practice as well
as in academia. This paper presents the results of interdisciplinary discussions fostered
during an annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture to
develop recommendations for value-driven innovation in global mental health training.
METHODS: Participants (n = 48), who registered for a dedicated workshop on global
mental health training advertised in conference proceedings, included both established
faculty and current students engaged in learning, practice, and research. They proffered
recommendations in five areas of training curriculum: values, competencies, training
experiences, resources, and evaluation. RESULTS: Priority values included humility,
ethical awareness of power differentials, collaborative action, and "deep accountability"
when working in low-resource settings in low- and middle-income countries and high-income
countries. Competencies included flexibility and tolerating ambiguity when working
across diverse settings, the ability to systematically evaluate personal biases, historical
and linguistic proficiency, and evaluation skills across a range of stakeholders.
Training experiences included didactics, language training, self-awareness, and supervision
in immersive activities related to professional or academic work. Resources included
connections with diverse faculty such as social scientists and mentors in addition
to medical practitioners, institutional commitment through protected time and funding,
and sustainable collaborations with partners in low resource settings. Finally, evaluation
skills built upon community-based participatory methods, 360-degree feedback from
partners in low-resource settings, and observed structured clinical evaluations (OSCEs)
with people of different cultural backgrounds. CONCLUSIONS: Global mental health training,
as envisioned in this workshop, exemplifies an ethos of working through power differentials
across clinical, professional, and social contexts in order to form longstanding collaborations.
If incorporated into the ACGME/ABPN Psychiatry Milestone Project, such recommendations
will improve training gained through international experiences as well as the everyday
training of mental health professionals, global health practitioners, and social scientists.
Type
Journal articleSubject
Cross-cultural psychiatryCurriculum development
Global mental health
Medical education
Training innovation
Clinical Competence
Community-Based Participatory Research
Curriculum
Ethnopsychology
Faculty, Medical
Global Health
Health Resources
Humans
Mental Health
Mentors
Psychiatry
Social Responsibility
Social Values
Teaching
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/12067Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1007/s40596-016-0504-4Publication Info
Kohrt, Brandon A; Marienfeld, Carla B; Panter-Brick, Catherine; Tsai, Alexander C;
& Wainberg, Milton L (2016). Global Mental Health: Five Areas for Value-Driven Training Innovation. Acad Psychiatry, 40(4). pp. 650-658. 10.1007/s40596-016-0504-4. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/12067.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Brandon A. Kohrt
Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Brandon Kohrt is a medical anthropologist and psychiatrist who completed his MD-PhD
at Emory University in 2009. He is currently Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Global
Health, and Cultural Anthropology at Duke University. Dr. Kohrt has worked in Nepal
since 1996 researching and aiding victims of war including child soldiers. Since 2006
has worked with Transcultural Psychosocial Organization (TPO) Nepal. Dr. Kohrt has
been a consultant to The Carter Center Mental Health Program Liberia Init

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