This issue of Education for Health is aligned with our annual meeting in Cape Town, South Africa, held in collaboration with Rural WONCA; the theme is People, Place, and Policy for Community Wellness. In many ways, this issue is emblematic of those concepts. People are the focus of refugee eye care, and “seeing people, not patients, a strength based approach to asset mapping” which emphasizes the humanity in the individuals we care for. Place features prominently in the piece on the ravages of war in Sudan on the lives of medical students, in the determinants of community oriented medical education, in the staircase model of community involvement, and in the medical education of US citizens in Cuba. Policy is broadly represented by the innovative education methods presented in tele-urgent care, flipped classroom, and gamification papers.
Mental health papers are starting to appear in this issue with a piece on student mistreatment, and imposter phenomenon and depression. In future issues, we would like to see papers about the mental health of the people we care for in our communities.
If you are reading this at the conference in South Africa, consider the ways in which the papers in this issue contribute to your insights about people, place, and policy and their relation to community wellness. If you are not at the conference, join the conversation through reading and responding with your own submissions, and your letters.
Bill Burdick
Co-Editor
Published: 2024-09-08