After a second day at Austral, our group was able to see a lot more of the campus. We started off the morning with a tour of the Medical Center, which was definitely not what I had expected it to be. This turned out to be a positive thing because I was not expecting the hospital to be as similar as it was to hospitals I have seen in the United States.

            As we strolled through the hospital it was full of advanced technology and I saw it was clearly very organized. My favorite part of touring the Medical Center was seeing the research facilities. We were fortunate enough to have a Pitt graduate show us around and explain the different types of research the facility performs. I really enjoyed learning about this and seeing how it directly relates to Austral’s mission statement. In this mission statement they state that they are on “the mission of truth”. In my opinion research is the first step in finding truth in medicine. Without it, we would not be able to continue to discover more about modern medicine and improve treatment methods.

            The second part of their mission statement states “pursuit. . . a culture of life”. This is something that I did not specifically see when I have been on the campus these past two days. In my opinion, the hospital of Austral did not seem to integrate this part of their statement as much. They do address that the top priority of the Medical Center is to put the patient above all. This was repeated many times by many of the workers, but when asked about how this is done, there doesn’t seem to be much outside the treatment of the patient that they could elaborate on. To me this would mean going above and beyond with activities and things for the patients to do while they stay. This is something I commonly see in hospitals in the United States and was expecting it here as well since it is their top priority. Although, this may be due to the quick turnaround of the hospital in result of the lack of bed space.

            At the end of the day I was so excited to speak with the Austral students and hear about what a day in the life of an Argentine college student is truly like. In all, today was really awesome to talk with more people about what the culture of the campus at Austral is really like.