Catálogo de publicaciones - libros

This chapter sets the study of international placements for healthcare professionals in the wider context of knowledge mobilisation characterising mobile health workers as knowledge brokers. It then discusses the concept of ‘volunteer’ and how appropriate this term is to the study of placement learning. The term ‘professional volunteer’ is proposed as a compromise. Two key contextual dimensions are then outlined: first, global health and the needs of low-resource settings. Secondly, the challenges facing a resource constrained UK National Health Service.

This chapter presents and discusses the findings from a survey conducted in the North West of England designed to gauge overall patterns of international exposure amongst all cadres of staff in the UK’s National Health Service.

Chapter 3 reviews existing research and the findings from qualitative interviews with returned professional volunteers to identify core learning outcomes associated with International Placements.

This chapter identifies some of the ‘costs’ associated with health worker placements in low-resource settings; it begins with a discussion of the costs of covering staff time during placements and some of the fears surrounding skills ‘wastage’ before highlighting risk areas associated with such placements.

Chapter 5 presents a brief summary of key issues. Returning to the conceptualisation of professional volunteers as knowledge intermediaries, it emphasises the critical learning opportunities associated with placements in low-resource settings. It then cautions against equating mobility metrics with notions of excellence per se, arguing that any experience must be judged on its outcomes if we are to preserve principles of equality of opportunity in National Health Service (NHS) careers. It then presents the Sustainable Volunteering Model as the basis for future evidence-based up-scaling that complies with highest ethical principles whilst respecting the duty of care to professional volunteers.