Maximizing your Study Abroad: Interview Project with a Nurse By: Heather Merson

Me: “What kinds of qualities does it particularly take to become a successful nurse?” Aleisha Cowie (Nurse): “Compassionate, problem solving skills, critical thinking, time management, confidence, enjoy working with people.”

Me: “How do you deal with the demanding stresses that nurses encounter on a daily basis? (death, disease etc.)” Aleisha: “Stress relieving activities that you enjoy outside of work to have a healthy work-life balance. Being able to switch off when you come home from work. Keeping a professional nurse to patient relationship, not getting too attached. Debriefing after deaths of patients/hard days work with a senior/trusted colleague.”

Me: “What difficulties have you encountered traveling as a nurse when working with patients?” Aleisha: “Most difficult thing would be language and culture differences. It's harder to connect with patients and learning to be sensitive to differing cultures and how they do things might be different than what you are used too.”

“Why did you decide to travel abroad to other counties and work as a nurse?” Aleisha: “I've always wanted to travel and use my profession to help others more in need. I've wanted to go to Africa since before I can remember so nursing of there just made sense (She volunteered as a Nurse in Kenya for two months). I also wanted to broaden my knowledge and gain a different experience.”

Me: “What have you learned while working abroad in other countries as a nurse that you did not know before? What skills have you acquired after your experiences?” Aleisha: “I've learnt that diseases/issues that we face in Australia (she is from Australia) are very different to ones in third world countries. For example, ours are very much health and lifestyle based, and can be helped by modification. Whereas in Africa they are diseases that can be prevented by immunizations/protection. Most things that we have eradicated. I've acquired a lot of problem solving/critical thinking. As most equipment/wound dressings that we have back home they don't so we had to make do a lot of the time. Also there aren't many doctors around so nurses have a broader scope of practice over there.”

Me: “Has there been an experience as a nurse that has totally changed or altered your perception of the world? If so, what was the experience?” Aleisha: “Basically that anyone at anytime can get really sick, no matter how much you take care of yourself. It makes you appreciate and how special it is.”

Me: “Do you think the career of nursing should be more globally based Me: “Do you think the career of nursing should be more globally based? Why or why not?” Aleisha: “I don't think so, I think there should be a global unit that makes everyone aware of global health issues but I don't think it would work if it was more global. All the systems are so different.”

Me “What were your hardest courses that you had to take in order for you to become a nurse?” Aleisha: “Medication course and anatomy and physiology.”

What I learned… I learned quite a bit during the process of the project, and also after the project. I now realize how this project benefits us. We can learn about and make possible connections within our career and make contacts with other people within our desired major. We can also get information about our major as well as how we could possibly connect it to traveling abroad during our job (since we are all in this class, probably due to our desire and love of travel). This interview project can give an idea of how we can somehow be able to travel during our career and give us ideas of how to do that. Many times throughout the trip I researched “traveling nursing opportunities”, so it definitely made me more interested in traveling as a nurse. In addition to learning how to connect our careers with traveling and globalization, we also simply learn what it takes to do the job we want to do from a person who lives our possible future everyday. For example, I asked how she deals with the demands of being a nurse (death, disease) and it gave me a broader perspective of what I will see around the world with healthcare. I would like to travel as a nurse so hearing that I must be prepared to deal with different medical needs as I travel around especially when I go to places that are poverty stricken. I will see much different illnesses and disease than I would here in the United States, which is a more developed country, and will have to be very opened minded as a nurse while I am different places around the world because the healthcare is can be very different from your countries healthcare and you have to be ready for that challenge.