Today was our final day in Birmingham! It’s bittersweet leaving because I’ve had such a fun time here and there was so much more I wanted to do, but at the same time I’m also very excited about London, which is our next destination!

This morning, we had our final lectures at BCU. First, we talked about smoking and cardiovascular disease. Cardiovascular disease is the number one leading cause of death across the globe. There are some risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as genetics, that you can’t control. However, one major risk factor of cardiovascular disease that you can control is smoking. Smoking is an addiction and can be very hard to quit. A problem, that is apparent in both the US and UK, is that individuals are starting to smoke at a younger age. This is due to an increase in flavored and colorful vapes. These children are essentially being targeted, and this can lead to very negative consequences for them. The issue, though, is that people aren’t just going to stop smoking (it’s not that simple), and they don’t like being told to stop smoking. One thing we discussed during this lecture that I hadn’t previously thought much about was the idea that people see the ability to smoke as their choice or freedom, but to what extent should they have this freedom. For example, secondhand smoke inhalation can have negative consequences on individuals and why should they suffer because of another person’s choice. After this lecture, we got to tour the skill lab at BCU. Their skills lab is amazing. They have mannequins that resemble real life people, including baby manikins and ones that can give birth. The state of the equipment alone is just mind blowing. They have the same anatomage tables that we have at the University of Pittsburgh. It is always fun getting to use those tables because everything is just so realistic. I think having skills lab like these ones are very beneficial because they allow students to have a hands-on approach and experience some of the situations they may encounter in a hospital setting that aren’t necessarily easy to stimulate in a lecture. The skills lab played a big factor into my decision to attend Pitt. In our final lecture we got to talk about learning disability nursing. Learning disabilities doesn’t mean the same thing as it means in the States. In the States, learning disabilities has to do with things like dyslexia, that make it a lot harder for individuals to perform in an academic setting. In the UK, however, those are called learning difficulties. In the UK, learning disabilities have to do more with things like down syndrome and autism. We don’t really have a comparable role to this in the States and maybe we should. One thing that stood out to me during this lecture was how poorly individuals with learning disabilities are treated. A lot of times people don’t see the whole individual and only see the thing that is different and makes them stand out. You have to be able to see each individual from a holistic perspective as a learning disabilities nurse. Unfortunately, there aren’t many people going into this field despite there being quite a few individuals with a learning disability in the UK and US.

After grabbing some lunch, we caught the bus to London! It was quite a long bus ride as it ended up taking about three hours to get to London! After checking into our hotel room, we had a group dinner with a few University of Pittsburgh alumni. It was interesting talking to them and comparing our experiences at Pitt. It is amazing to see how much things have changed and what things haven’t really changed, especially when it comes to the restaurants.

That’s all for today! Tomorrow, we get to explore London, and I cannot wait!