Nursing students spent nine days helping communities in Mexico this summer.
Ten nursing students traveled to Oaxaca, Mexico to learn professional nursing skills in a real world environment, led by professors Beth Pitman and Pam Melson.
“The trip is for community health nursing,” Pitman said. “We actually go down there and study their healthcare delivery system.”
The trip involved touring private and public hospitals, a lecture series from anthropologists, speaking with local physicians, and a traditional healing and medicine lecture, which included a trip to a midwifery. The trip culminated in a community service project where the students made and served food to the residents of an estancia who were staying there to see their relatives in the hospital.
Pitman said the experience was beneficial for the students.
“The students love it; they describe it as life changing,” she said. “A lot of times they have not been out of the country before.”
Besides the healthcare aspect of the trip, there were personal changes the students experienced, Pitman said.
While experiencing the culture of Oaxaca, the students also gained real world knowledge that they would not have gotten anywhere else.
“In nursing, we talk a lot about serving diverse populations,” said Pitman. “There’s not one type that always gets sick.”
According to Pitman, this kind of exposure to a culture that was alien to them allowed the students to learn that despite many of them not knowing the language, they could communicate using body language, emotion and even simple gestures such as pointing.
Pitman said these communication techniques helped the students find confidence in themselves, knowing they can figure out how to communicate with people without necessarily speaking the same language.
“The interesting thing was that even though there aren’t a lot of resources and we think of Oaxaca as being a very poor place, they were able to identify that the same equipment we use here at one of our nicest urban hospitals is the same ventilator that they have down there, the same CPAP, the same IV bags, the medications look exactly the same,” Pitman said.
According to Pitman, one of the most interesting parts of the trip was when they encountered an American woman who was being taken care of in the very same hospital they were visiting. By seeing an eyewitness compare the two healthcare systems side by side, Pitman said the students saw the care provided in Mexico is the same, if not more attentive, than that in the United States.
Pitman said the trip had a positive impact on students’ view of the world.
“We are all kind of the same. Yes, things are different. Your city might look different, your hospital might look different, but the people are the same,” Pitman said.
Leah Mossman, music theater sophomore, said it is important for students to get experience in their major outside of OCU.
“Students being able to study abroad based on their major is really important, because it gives people an opportunity to experience their career in a different part of the world,” she said.
Leave a Reply