International Education & Training

The PAETC provides a range of education and training programs at the University of Southern California and in-country training for international health professionals. Both in-country and training at USC focus on creating a solid knowledge base, developing prevention and treatment skills, and building clinical capacity to identify and manage all stages of HIV disease.

Training at USC is open to physicians, dentists, and nurses. In-country education and training programs target physicians, dentists, nurses, prevention specialists, and public health professionals.

In-county education and training

In-county programs are designed to help national and regional governments build a sustained capacity for HIV and AIDS treatment and prevention. Programs can include national wide training of health care professionals or specifically focused on individual clinics.

Issues that faculty from the PAETC have addressed include:

1. stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS
2. limited knowledge about HIV transmission
3. fear of infection
4. failure to screen for possible exposure to the HIV virus
5. failure to recognize signs and symptoms of HIV and AIDS
6. limited capacity to provide treatment for HIV/AIDS patients, including palliative and hospice care
7. limited capacity to provide in-country HIV/AIDS education including, curricular materials and other resources for health care professionals.

Formats for in-country education and training include:

1. conferences, seminars, and brief lectures to build a knowledge base
2. workshops that range from 4 hours to several days aimed at developing specific skills in HIV/AIDS prevention and management
3. hands-on clinical trainings, preceptorships, and clinical consultation for health care providers involved with the management of HIV disease.
4. In addition the PAETC provides technical assistance including needs assessment, treatment system development, and evaluation planning to governmental agencies.

Education and training at the PAETC

The program at the PAETC is primarily a clinical training program and occurs at the USC Keck School of Medicine, USC Dental School, the USC School of Pharmacy, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, and at affiliated community based HIV clinical care sites in Southern California. The core program is two weeks in length with options for extended training up to six months.

Program goals include developing clinical skills and competency in:

1. assessing risk for infection and early diagnoses of HIV infection
2. diagnosing HIV, AIDS, and related co-infections
3. managing patients with HIV disease (including adherence to medications, resistance testing, and salvage therapies)
4. educational leadership to become a teacher of others and plan better HIV clinical services.

International trainings that the PAETC has provided

The PAETC has conducted in-country programs in Ethiopia, Russia, and Serbia. International providers trained at the PAETC have been from Belarus, Botswana, Canada, India, Japan, Korea, Palau, Romania, South Africa, and Serbia.

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