As the realization grows that the health workforce shortage and maldistribution is the largest barrier to meeting the Millennium Development Goals, more and more health workforce publications appear every year. Sifting through them to find those worth reading and using can be a Sisyphean task. Every week I save the most important publications I have encountered across all the domains of health workforce: policy, leadership, financing, training, retention, productivity, and management. I look at scholarly articles, field reports, guidelines, toolkits, and technical briefs. Looking back on these publications in 2011, one clearly rises to the top: The Global Consensus for Social Accountability of Medical Schools.
The medical school is a mini health system with all the elements of a national health system including strategic planning, community accountability, service delivery, health worker education, and management. Anyone in public health could benefit from reading this report, no matter what their current work. The global consensus for social accountability of medical schools contains a series of recommendations in 10 domains that when implemented will have significant effects on institutional governance, health worker retention and performance, and ultimately community health outcomes. Health professional schools train the very people who end up running the health system, so who they train and what values and skills they are taught has a direct effect on the health system’s ultimate functioning. Read more »
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Remote regions of the world often face the most challenges accessing health services and health workers. In the frontier areas on the border of Bolivia and Peru, these difficulties are anticipated to intensify with the completion of the transoceanic highway. Intended to link South American ports on the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, the highway will open this rural frontier to increased commerce, traffic and migration, as well as an increased demand for health services. Consequently, with the opening of the highway, incidence of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other communicable diseases will likely increase. 
