Training health professional students in human rights is increasingly recognised as critical for producing graduates able to incorporate social justice and equity into their practice.
The Health and Human Rights programme ran a 5 day short course in Health and Human Rights targeting teachers of students in the health professions from 1998 through to 2013. The course trained over 250 academic staff and health professionals responsible for teaching in a range of institutions across South Africa and the African region and provided them with tools, skills and ideas for how to mainstream human rights in their teaching. You can download the manual used for teaching here and adapt it for use in your own context. Although the course has been discontinued, the materials are still freely available for use and adaptation under a Creative Commons copyright license – share and share alike.
Various commentaries and publications have emerged from this work, including:
Ewert EG, Baldwin-Ragaven L, London L. Training Trainers in Health and Human Rights: Implementing curriculum change in South African health sciences institutions. BMC Medical Education 2011, 11:47. URL. This publication evaluated the training offered and found evidence that trainees had managed to implement curriculum change in their institutions following the training courses.
Other opinion pieces include:
London L, Baldwin-Ragaven L, Kalebi A, Maart S, Petersen L, Kasolo J. Developing human rights competencies for South African health professional graduates. S Afr Med J 2007; 97: 1269-1270.
L London, Baldwin-Ragaven L. Human rights and health: Challenges for training nurses in South Africa. Curationis 2008; 31: 5-18.
London L. Human Rights: A professional responsibility and an institutional obligation. South African Journal of Occupational Therapy 2008; 38: 1.