The missing link: introducing travel medicine into the undergraduate medical curriculum.
Travel medicine awaits formal specialty recognition in many jurisdictions. It is likely over time that higher specialist training pathways in this discipline will be established. Education in this dynamic field has focused on the postgraduate phase of medical and nursing education, with the development of postgraduate university programmes and membership examinations.1 The Certificate of Knowledge of the International Society of Travel Medicine assesses an agreed body of knowledge for practising travel health professionals.2 An analysis of the practice of 341 travel health clinics worldwide revealed that 40% of physicians providing travel health advice and vaccinations were not trained in infectious diseases or tropical medicine.3 A retrospective study of returned travellers' case notes reported deficiencies in the documentation of travel histories in patients presenting to a teaching hospital with symptoms of tropical infectious diseases.4 The recommendations for the practice of travel medicine highlight the need for clinicians to maintain their knowledge and skills through continuing professional development.5 It is desirable to introduce all undergraduate healthcare students to travel medicine, since the majority of medical graduates subsequently train to become general practitioners or family physicians and there is hardly a medical or surgical specialty to which travel health issues are not relevant. These graduates will ultimately provide travel health advice to travellers in a primary care setting, or be required to recognize imported tropical infectious diseases in hospital emergency departments.6
Journal of travel medicine