Innovation in Medical Education: A Training Partnership in Ghana

For several decades, there has been increasing focus on worldwide disparities in mental health care with particular emphasis on building mental health workforce capacity in low and middle income countries (LAIMCs). One potential opportunity to address treatment gaps and improve the quality of life of individuals suffering from mental illness is to accelerate the development of meaningful long-term local and global partnerships which utilize the concept of “twinning.” In the “twining process,” institutions in high income countries (HICs) partner with LAIMCs to address common goals by sharing resources and time. While most of the work to build global capacity has focused on training lay persons and paraprofessionals, there is also a role for training higher level professionals, including medical students, residents, and psychiatrists. This chapter describes the efforts of the New York Grossman University School of Medicine’s Psychiatry Residency Program to build capacity in Ghana through teaching support and bidirectional elective opportunities for residents and medical students in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Ghana School of Medicine and Dentistry.