By
Alexandra Salerno
On
her first visit to the United States, Camila Lucchini witnessed a young
mom give birth in a grocery store. Well, sort of.
Lucchini,
representing the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, was one of eight
international visitors participating in the University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing 2013 Summer
Intensive for Nurse Educators.
“It
has been a great experience to share with colleagues of other countries and
also to learn what nursing is like in North America,” Lucchini said.
The
program, in its first year, welcomed nursing educators from Cambodia, Chile and
China as they learned clinical skills and techniques to improve nursing
practices, patient care and outcomes to teach students in their home countries.
“We
thought the simulation was a wonderful experience for our participants this
year, especially something like simulated birth in a non-clinical area,” said Mary Rodgers Schubert, M.P.M., R.N., director of
Continuing Education at Pitt's School of Nursing. “[It]
is so important to teach young nurses about [non-clinical births] because they
could be anywhere and have some sort of spontaneous situation in which they may
have to participate. Going grocery shopping and having a mom go into labor
could be a very real thing.”
According
to Lucchini, the skills she gained during the summer intensive can be adapted
when she returns to Chile. “I have been thinking about the importance of
locally applying knowledge,” Lucchini said. “I think that is the great value [of
this program]. I ask, ‘How can we do nursing with different realities?’”
During
the two-week intensive, Dr. Haiou Xia, one of four nurse educators from China, discussed how to bring models learned at Pitt back
home to the School of Nursing Fudan University in Shanghai. The role of the
clinical instructor is quite different in China, she said, adding that she believes students can learn more
in the clinical setting and that experience helps them to reach or obtain the
clinical practice objectives.
Schubert
hopes it is only the beginning of the Nursing School’s Intensive program for
international nursing educators. “We hope to continue it on an annual basis,” she
said.