We were greeted with an early start this morning and headed to the bus around 8am. I could not sleep so I looked out the window and saw a beautiful view of some houses in Buenos Aires by the train tracks. I saw a lot of interesting and beautiful buildings on the way there looking out the window, so even though I wish I could’ve been able to fall asleep, it was worth it to be awake. When we arrived in Pilar the campus was so great to see. We walked inside and went to a short lecture about the hospital as well as the school and how they tie in together. There were some differences between the two private hospitals, Los Arcos and Austral, as Austral is a teaching hospital. We also got into the funding and Los Arcos is primarily under Swiss Medical group insurance, Austral is under one of the largest insurance companies in the country, Osde having a 35% share, then Swiss Medical a 10% share, and then there private insurance company holding about 9%. It was interesting to here about there breakdown of funding, there need for funding for more research, there teaching process, and comparing that with that we learned about Los Arcos. Afterward, we took a tour of the hospital and it was good to see the different floors, and what was going on briefly.

Then we walked over to the University side of Austral, and were warmly greeted by a few students and empanadas! My friends and I talked to two students, one in nursing about to graduate, and one a first-year design student. From the nursing students, we learned about how their program differs from how nurses do it in the U.S. For example, their program is 5 years whereas ours is 4, they do not need a certain grade point average to stay in their program, and they do not need to take a standardized test like the NCLEX we have to. One thing I also found very interesting is how they start clinical their first semester which is awesome! It was so great to talk to the students I learned a lot about Austral and about them, and they were extremely kind to us. I loved talking about our own lives, things we like to, and the different places we live. It was a lot of fun and I loved meeting them!

Lastly, to finish off the day we drove over to San Isidro, and had a short lecture about their hospital as well as their community. I enjoyed this lecture a lot as it was very informative and gave us even more information on a public hospital that operates in a smaller area, compared to hospital Fernandez which is in the middle of Buenos Aires. After the lecture we got a short tour of one of the floors, as well as an open ICU floor which was good to see. Then we headed back to the bus and I enjoyed the views once again on the ride back.