Travel health medicine is a fast growing and fast moving area of clinical practice. All health professionals providing travel health advice need to be familiar with current travel health issues and be able to deliver correct advice using reliable information resources tailored to the individual needs of each traveller.

More people with pre-existing illnesses or other special needs are travelling, therefore delivering advice is becoming more complex.

This new online course aims to equip new and experienced practitioners in the development of their vaccination knowledge and skills within a travel health setting.  It will provide a platform of confident practice, reflection and continuing professional development (CPD) through interactive learning with subject specialists and peers.

Course Outline

• Vaccine preventable diseases of importance to the travel health practitioner
• Accessing reliable evidence based country specific vaccine information
• The immune system and the interplay with vaccines
• Types of vaccines
• Administration rules about combining vaccines and vaccine scheduling
• Application of knowledge using travel scenarios for vaccine administration
• Factors that affect vaccine delivery including cold chain and traveller specific issues such as existing health problems.

Course Structure

Students are expected to engage 4-5 hours per week over the 4 week period.

Week zero: Introductory Week

An outline of the course is presented to the students. They are asked to consider the etiquette and ground rules and to develop their own online profile. There are a number of resources for them to familiar with the online tools and interacting with fellow students. A detailed resource list for the whole course is given to students in block zero so that they can start to look at relevant supporting literature. Moderators introduce a discussion topic on whole group discussion board to engage students.

Week 1: Vaccine Preventable Diseases (VPD):

1. Students learn about VPD: 3 different 20 min delivered lectures about VPD.
2. Group activity - Students consolidate learning by completing information about each disease studied in a standard template given to them. Submit to class. Moderator to provide completed example answers to the class, once students have completed task.
3. Group activity - Each student group works on a traveller scenario given to them and completes using a standard template and submits to the class Moderator to provide completed example answers to the class, once students have completed task.
4. Further reading is identified for students
5. Formative multiple-choice questions about VPD
6. Reflective diary to complete.

Week 2: Immunology, vaccine types and schedules

Students learn using delivered recorded teaching material, individual and group work, further reading, discussion and formative MCQs

1. Video lecture on Immunology (Part 1) by Dr Andrew Riordan, followed by individual activity using matching exercise to match immunological term to its definition. Full definitions list is provided to students at the end of the block.
2. Video lecture on Immunology (Part 2) by Dr Andrew Riordan, followed by small group activity on vaccine type - Students are tasked with producing a table of vaccines they use or might use in their practice including the important details they will need to understand to enable them to inform their patients about each vaccine and discussed by group/class. Peer review following task to give feedback to other group members. Moderator gives an example answer to students at the end of the week.
3. Traveler vaccines in more detail: Students undertake a group activity to detail vaccine specifics such as type, indications, contraindications, efficacy and side effects.
4. Moderator gives an example answer to students at the end of the week.
5. Vaccine scheduling group activity using scenarios for students to complete and then give peer feedback to other group members. Moderator gives an example answer to students at the end of the week.
6. Formative multiple-choice questions to end the block.
7. Reflective diary to complete

Week 3: Travel Vaccines in Practice

Students learn using delivered recorded teaching material, individual and group work, further reading, discussion and formative MCQs

1. Video lecture on management of the vaccine cold chain by Philippa Tubb followed by a group discussion task to discuss cold chain incident in their practice.
2. The challenging travel health consultation – video of a consultation followed by group discussion activity on went well and what could be improved in the consultation.
3. Complicated traveller scenarios – group activity followed by peer review and feedback. Moderator to provide completed example to the students at end of block.
4. Further reading is identified for students
5. Formative multiple-choice questions to end the block.
6. End of module reflection.

Online Learning

We are using an Asynchronous learning model.  Asynchronous e-learning involves recorded material and group work delivered via web (virtual learning environment), email and message boards that are then posted on online forums. In such cases, students ideally complete the course at their own pace (expected 4-5 hours per week, over the 5 weeks), by using the internet as a support tool rather than at specific online classes in real time.

Studying online is a first for many people.  This course will help you discover the skills required for online study and evaluate your own study skillset. You’ll also experience online communities and how you benefit from flexible study arrangements while still being supported by dedicated tutors.  Studying online takes advantage of technology to simulate or improve upon traditional methods of teaching.

We use a number of innovative tools to support your learning, whilst studying with us, at the centre of which is Brightspace. Brightspace brings together learners, tutors and learning materials in a simple to use web based learning management system which many students tell us is the easiest study platform they have used.  Brightspace is designed to give you easy access to everything you need to complete your studies whilst enabling you to interact with your fellow learners and be part of the wider LSTM community. Brightspace is mobile friendly and supports you even in low bandwidth settings.

LSTM also has a number of other technologies available which enable you to access video based learning resources (Panopto), easily study on your tablet device even whilst offline (Binder) and work effectively online with your peers (Wiggio). Each of these technologies has been designed to be user friendly and intuitive to use and you will have a dedicated team of staff to support you in the use of these. You will also have an Office 365 account and be able to download the latest version of Microsoft Office for the duration of your studies. 

LSTM Student Charter

General enquiries, assistance with applications and technical issues, please email mylstm@lstmed.ac.uk

If you would like to discuss something confidentially, perhaps disclose a disability, etc… please email studentsupport@lstmed.ac.uk.