Today, we started off with a nice bus ride to Universidad de Austral in Pilar, Argentina. The campus was medium-sized and we got attacked by a million of mosquitos. We toured the university and met some students who explained their education of Argentina which had many differences. While talking to the director and the students they discussed how nursing is a five year program(technically four and a half years). After they complete the three years, they become an equivalent to an LPN in the US and can start working in the hospital. During the three years, they take basic classes such as pharmacology, anatomy and physiology , microbiology, etc. They also start their “clinical” during their first year of nursing school. In the US, most colleges start their clinical training in junior year but some schools start during their sophmore year like Pitt. If students decide to complete their fifth year, they can work in the ICU. Some things I learned about the ICU was the nursing to patient ratio is 1:2. During Covid, it was 1:6 and can even be more due to the high demand. I also learned that a nurse average work day is 8 hours for 5 days.

When learning about the specialities s at Austral, oncology, cardiology, emergency medicine and pediatrics are the most popular. There is no psychiatric specialization either in nursing. In pitt, we have clinical at the psych hospital but in Argentina they have a mental health training instead of a specialization dedicated towards it. I also learned from one of the students, the average wage per hour is $4 -5 an hour which is incredibly low compared to the US.

We went to San Insidro which was a public hospital which is in a municipal and consider one of the wealthiest in Argentina. It looked less modern and very different compared to the private hospitals. The director discussed the codes they call such as code blue which is a cardiac arrest and code yellow for pediatric cardiac arrest. It was incredibly exciting to learn the similarities and differneces within nursing education.