The CRIISIS COIL model: advancing equitable global allied health and nursing education

International collaboration in allied health and nursing education faces a long-standing paradox: although healthcare practice is increasingly global, professional education remains largely national or local. Regulatory constraints, the historical framing of health professions as task-based rather than academic, gendered perceptions of nursing as supportive rather than leadership-oriented, and structural inequities all limit cross-border collaboration and physical student mobility. In response, the CRIISIS (Connecting and Reflecting in Student International Interactive Study Groups) Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) model was developed to reimagine internationalization through equity, relational learning, and reciprocity. Grounded in Kolb’s Experiential Learning Theory, the model integrates students’ personal and family health crisis narratives into a structured cycle of reflection, comparative analysis, and action within international teams. Students engage in virtual proximity, intentional relationship-centered interaction across distance, using dialogue, shared inquiry, and collaborative problem-solving to connect individual experiences to global health challenges and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Evaluation of three implementation cycles demonstrates that the CRIISIS COIL model fosters cultural humility, communication adaptability, leadership within complexity, and narrative competence. Students develop deeper awareness of how social and structural factors shape health and family experiences across societies. By valuing lived experience as legitimate knowledge and promoting horizontal partnership across institutions, the model challenges traditional hierarchies in global education. Ultimately, CRIISIS positions global learning not as an extractive exchange, but as an ethical, relational, and equity-oriented process that prepares health professionals to navigate and address health inequities in an interconnected world.