Opinion: Importance of international solidarity during Covid-19

UCL Medical School (UCLMS) has a number of highly valued international collaborations, enabling cross-country learning and expertise, in support of medical education. Here UCLMS leaders explain why, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, these partnerships are as important as ever. For a number of years, the UCL Medical School has been engaged in academic collaborations with new and existing medical schools around the world to help develop and transform their medical education programmes. These collaborations vary in their setting, scale and scope, but all share an underlying mission of co - creating high - quality, sustainable and locally customised education programmes. Typically, the collaborations extend over a number of years and include support in a variety of academic and organisational domains. The COVID - 19 pandemic has had a dramatic impact on all aspects of medical education, and these academic collaborations have, unsurprisingly, been particularly affected. Much of the rhetoric about the COVID - 19 pandemic has focused on racialised and discriminatory governmental and organisational responses, xenophobia and isolationism.