Today we were up bright and early and had the opportunity to visit a hospital and university in the province of Buenos Aires. The province and the city of Buenos Aires are two different places in Argentina. The city is extremely more populated as well as rich compared to the condition of the province. To begin, we started with visiting Hospital Paroissien with some associates from the Universidad la Matanza. The hospital is a part of the public healthcare sector in Argentina. It was very obvious that the hospital was not in the best of conditions currently. The building itself is going through construction and renovations in the emergency department and ICU wing, which limits the amount of ample space in those units which are usually some of the most popular. In my opinion, it is never a comfortable visit in the public sectors due to the extreme invasion of privacy to patients. We are seeing some in very vulnerable states, even more so when you consider why they might be visiting a public hospital in contrast to a private hospital, and it always feels like an invasion or dehumanizing. It sometimes feels like we are starring at a fish through the fishbowl or an animal at the zoo as some hospital directors instruct us to take a picture of an area littered with patients, which we all usually refuse to do so. After the hospital, we traveled to the Universidad la Matanza. While here, it was really intriguing to see how much the university contrasted with not only the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Nursing, but the nursing teaching overall in the United States. At this university, students receive an education for free. It is also not common to live on college campuses but to instead commute. They have students ranging from 17-70+ years of age, which is a normal occurrence for them to see people any age walking to their class on campus. As I mentioned in a previous blog post, their nursing curriculum is broken down into two parts over five years. For the first three years, they get an associate’s degree and the next two they will complete nursing school and receive a BSN. They do not have many graduate programs in nursing here in Argentina, but they mentioned they are slowly and surely growing. Similarly, the nursing students had a simulation lab. This included real tools, a dummy who speaks and responds, a practice room, and a monitor and microphone where the professor speaks and watches the students. The students also participate in clinical or practicing in the hospital while still in school. As Pitt has, we are connected directly to UPMC Presbyterian Hospital. Some universities have had similar layouts in Argentina, while others must travel a distance for clinicals. It was so nice to speak with nursing students from the Universidad la Matanza and compare and contrast the nursing schools, healthcare sectors, and overall life differences from Argentina and the United States. Lastly, we got to go on a street art tour in Palermo. I expected it to be graffiti on abandoned buildings, but instead street art is encouraged in Palermo and is a very celebrated thing to do. This very much differs from the views of it in the United States, so it was nice to see art being encouraged and wanted. Hasta mañana 🙂