Today was out final day in Birmingham! I started off my day by eating a hotel waffle for breakfast. I have eaten hotel waffles every morning since we arrived in the UK, and they have never disappointed. While this is going to be my last hotel waffle, I am excited to try out a new breakfast at our hotel in London. After breakfast, we walked over to BCU, where we met up with Ana for the last time before going to our final lectures. Our first lecture was on smoking and cardiovascular disease. Did you know that 1 person dies every 33 seconds from cardiovascular disease? Even with this statistic, the UK has a long-term plan to help with cardiovascular disease. For example, they plan to ban selling tobacco products to anyone born on or after January 2009. This presentation was very enlightening, and I learned a lot more about the topic of cardiovascular diseases and how smoking affects it.

After the first lecture, we got a tour of their simulation labs. I absolutely loved looking at all of the different labs they had to offer. It was interesting to compare our simulation labs to theirs. Also, there was this one computer that they had where you could look at the anatomy of a cadaver. I heard they have this same machine at the Oakland campus, but in Greensburg, we do not. It was super fun to look at the different layers of the body and look at the different heart rhythms that could occur. I also loved looking at the pregnant mannequins, since I have never seen them before.

After our tour, we headed back to the lecture room for our final lecture of the trip. This lecture was about learning disability nurses. We learned what it is like to be a learning disability nurse and what their responsibilities are. In the UK, people diagnosed with a learning disability are diagnosed before the age of 18. After that, they it is considered an acquired brain injury. After we finished up with that lecture, we got lunch. I got a chicken burger (chicken sandwich) which was really good. After lunch, we all met back up in the BCU lobby, when it started to downpour. Since we had a 2-hour bus ride, Dr. Marks decided it was best if we just took the bus back so that we would not be soaking wet for our ride. By the time we got back, we only had a few minutes to grab our bags before the bus got there.

My plan was to take a nap on the bus, but it was so unbelievably uncomfortable, so I only slept for about an hour before I woke up. I ended up reading my book for the rest of the ride, and I finished it when I got to the hotel. By the time we got to the hotel, all I wanted to do was lay in my bed. Unfortunately, the hotel did not have our room ready yet, so while all our friends went up to their rooms we were stuck in the lobby for another 15 minutes. By the time we finally got up there, I was so hungry and tired that I was in a foul mood. That didn’t change until after I got my Caesar salad for dinner. The salad was really good, but the dessert was even better. I got apple crumble with vanilla ice cream, and it was the highlight of my night. We did a bit of souvenir shopping after dinner before going back to our hotel to get ready for bed. I am so excited to explore London tomorrow and see all the new sights!