In this era of globalization, it is necessary that integration into the practice milieu of new health professional graduates is supported by pedagological innovations in Global Health education. There is an urgent call for skilful practitioners who can integrate local and global issues promote health and care giving, for both the majority and the minority world. Nursing has a long history of international and global work and yet, in most countries, including Canada, formal integration of such perspectives to nursing curriculum has been limited. Presently, the shortage of nurses in the United States and some European countries and the subsequent migration of nurses from the so called ‘third world’ to perform nursing work have been shaping health care systems around the world (Kingma, 2006). Unfortunately, this historical and current trend is not reflected in nursing undergraduate education.

This presentation will speak to the complexities of living and caring in a “global village”. It will describe the challenges and alternatives created at a Canadian university in integrating Global Health in the curriculum. Global Health courses, global collaboration and pedagological support for Global Health Clinical practicum in North Canada and internationally will be described.

The framework employed, course components, and placements offered to students and their reflection on the experience will be described. Sample narrative feedback from both students and preceptors will be shared. Future directions include recent funding from the Centre for Excellence and Innovation in Nursing Education (CEINE) to develop evaluation tools for a systematic evaluation of the undergraduate global health clinical practicum.

The hope is to provide insights in integrating GH to the curriculum in preparing competent and socially responsible nurses and health professionals as global citizens.