A cross-disciplinary database of global health fellowships for physicians

There is clear evidence of growing interest among U.S. medical trainees in pursuing global health training opportunities. More medical students and residents than ever before are participating in global health electives.

Similarly, there has been growing demand for global health training opportunities at the post-residency or fellowship level. Yet as recently as several years ago, few global health fellowship programs existed, with the notable exception of international emergency medicine fellowships, which began significantly appearing 10 to 15 years ago.

Today, however, global health fellowships are becoming increasingly common across all medical disciplines and are currently available in emergency medicine, internal medicine, women’s health, psychiatry, pediatrics, surgery, and other disciplines. The purpose of this database is to provide a public listing of global health fellowships across medical specialties.

About the Database

In 2010 and again in 2017, we conducted studies to identify and characterize all global health fellowships in the U.S. and Canada.(1,2) Between those years, the number of programs nearly doubled. 

In hopes this information may be useful to potential fellows and fellowship programs, we created this public Global Health Fellowship Database based on the findings of those studies. Updates from programs are welcome and are added as we receive them.

1. Nelson BD, Izadnegahdar R, Hall L, Lee PT. Global Health Fellowships: A National, Cross-Disciplinary Survey of US Training Opportunities. J Grad Med Educ. 2012 Jun;4(2):184–9.

2. Evensen A, Duffy S, Dawe R, Pike A, Nelson BD. Status of global health fellowship training in the United States and Canada. Canadian Med Educ J. 2019.