This compulsory training unit aims to ensure that every single medical student, in his or her very first semester at Medical School, learns about present-day health inequalities in the global world. It uses the SDG framework as a most efficient way to teach two interrelated issues. On the one hand, this concerns the way that the human right to health is disparately exercised in the world and health inequities between countries may be as significant as gaps of more than 25 years in life expectancy. On the other, the SDG framework helps to demonstrate to physicians-to-be how the 2030 international agenda concerns them, not only as citizens but also as medical practitioners.

This unit is part of the course ‘Introduction to medicine: social, historical and cultural aspects of health and disease’ and consists of three formal activities. First, through an introductory lecture, students are presented with the basic principles of the 2030 agenda, with particular detail in regards to SDG number 3, encompassing the specific targets to be achieved. In addition, they are presented with reliable international databases where to find health information about all the countries in the world, with particular attention to WHO databases that are now aligned with the SDG targets. Secondly, students work in small groups to compile and compare the health indicators of the SDG 3 targets of a list of countries assigned according to cultural, economic and regional diversity. They prepare presentations comparing and analyzing the data and assessing the progress towards achieving the targets. The final part of the activity is an all-class meeting where each group shares their findings and reflects on them. All the countries of the world are assigned, so that, at the end of the activity, every trainee physician knows about the state of health targets worldwide and the progress each country needs to make.