Day 2 in Buenos Aires! We started bright and early at 8am, with an hour-ish bus ride to Universidad Austral. We attended a lecture with a former nurse and a current nursing professor at the university. At the lecture, we learned about the role of the nurses in Argentina and about the university itself. We learned that in Argentina, there a lot more physicians compared to nurses, which is the opposite in the United States. This is due to lower salaries and lower social image for nurses. However, Argentina has started programs to increase nursing social image, in hopes to increase more nurses in the workforce. Additionally, the majority of the nursing staff in Argentina do not have a bachelors in nursing education, but bachelor degrees are increasing in the workforce.
We learned that Universidad Austral is 34 years old and their first graduating nursing class was only 8 people, but now they’re about 30 people. They have nursing postgraduate degrees in neonatal care and oncologic care. There are 967 students in the biomedical school, which consists of nursing, medical, psychology, and pharmacy.
Challenges that Austral Hospital faces as a private hospital is the staffing of nurses and the economy. Not many nursing staff that work at private hospitals (or hospitals in general) hold bachelor degrees in nursing. Additionally, there are not enough nurses compared to physicians. Not many people want to work as nurses due to the salary and working conditions. The economy is also a big problem because it is always changing in Argentina. This causes salaries to be always changing and the hospital struggles with prices of resources. The profit changes often as well.
After the lecture, we went on a tour of the university’s hospital, Austral Hospital. It was really cool to see how a private hospital in Argentina is run, and how it compares to a hospital in Pittsburgh. This hospital felt pretty similar to UPMC Presbyterian, but also had many different features. Most of our tour was spent in different pediatric inpatient wards, which I found really interesting since I want to be a pediatric nurse/nurse practitioner. We saw the pediatric ICU and other wards. After the hospital tour, we went to a mixer with students that attend Universidad Austral, where we got to talk to students and eat yummy empanadas. I met Joaquina, who is a business student at Austral. She was so nice and welcoming. I got to learn more about majoring in business, and how it is going to college in Argentina. After the mixer, we returned back to our hotel to walk around Buenos Aires and then got dinner at an Argentinian steakhouse. Today was a great day and can’t wait for the days ahead!
