This month, 30 doctoral students from the School of Nursing are traveling to Italy to gain firsthand experience with health care in another culture.
Dr. Rick Zoucha
The eight-day trip, which runs from Wednesday, June 12 through Thursday, June 20, is a study-abroad option available to students enrolled in Transcultural and Global Health Perspectives, a three-credit graduate nursing course. As with all graduate nursing classes at Duquesne, the course is taught online, but required fieldwork for the course must be completed in the environment of a non-U.S. health care system.
In Rome and Palermo, the students will closely observe the Italian health care system as well participate in everyday Italian life and culture. The health care experience involves observation in two different hospital settings: a public hospital in Rome and a hospital in Palermo that specializes in organ transplantation.
Dr. Melanie Turk
This year marks the fifth time that the study abroad component was offered to students in the class and the third time that a group from the class has traveled to Italy. Twenty-six of this year’s students are enrolled in the Doctor or Nursing Practice (DNP) program and four are in the Ph.D. program.
Dr. Rick Zoucha and Dr. Melanie Turk are leading the group. According to Zoucha, to date, more than 80 students in the DNP and Ph.D. programs have taken advantage of this opportunity, which aims to increase the students’ understanding of health care realities at home through immersion abroad.
“We aim for a cultural immersion experience that will provide our doctoral nursing students with a greater appreciation of the experiences and health needs of immigrants, refugees and people of other cultures in the United States,” Zoucha said.
While in Italy, the students will stay at Duquesne’s Rome campus.