Today, we began our day with an early morning to the University of Austral, Pilar-HUA Private Sector where we spoke to Dr. Marcelo Pelizzari. Here he discussed a lot of major challenges that the hospital faces such as staffing shortages due to burnout and turnovers, emergency overload, patient volume and capacity, amongst other things like technological advancements. When we toured Swiss Medical, I noticed that they also faced some challenges around pandemic pressure, medical inflation and resource constraints. Together, I think some of the more prominent issues that they had in common were the quality of care in terms of both institutions are known for providing high-quality healthcare services. Also, both hospitals operate in the private healthcare sector, meaning that patients can access their services by signing up for private health insurance plans. While I found very similarities, each hospital has unique characteristics and strengths that depend on multiple different circumstances. 

After this presentation, we were able to have some lunch we toured the hospital and talked to a few nursing students from the University of Austral. We got to know them, how they like nursing school, and comparing how our experience was for us and them which was very interesting. Around midafternoon, we hopped on the bus and headed to the Hospital of San Isidro which is part of the Public Sector. Here we talked to Maria Richards who is a nurse and also the secretary of Healthcare Planning. We participated in a group lecture about the challenges of San Isidro Hospital in Argentina like workforce challenges, financial pressures as well as government mandates and technology integration. She toured us around the hospital which specialized in emergency care, surgery, internal medicine and also had connected to the hospital medical research and education as it collaborated with universities and medical schools to train future healthcare professionals. I learned that this hospital is extremely committed to continuing to learn and innovate benefits for both patients and the medical community. We ended the day with a long bus ride home and are all on the way the to dinner. Until tomorrow with fun plans ahead at the ranch…catch ya on the flip side.