Today we got to visit both of BCU’s campuses for the first time! The day started off with a tour of the City Centre Campus from Chinenye Anetekhai. It was so nice to meet her and it was lovely to hear about the work she has done as a teacher and nurse. We learned a few facts about nursing in the UK that separated it from our experience that stood out to me. To start, in the UK they do not take the NCLEX like us. Therefore, a licensed nurse in the UK would not be permitted to work in the US. Additionally, throughout our college experience of four years, we get to work in several different fields of nursing through clinical. However, in the UK, they finish schooling in three years and focus on one specialty more thoroughly as they work towards receiving their degree.
On our tour of the building at the City Centre Campus, we saw this station where students are able to borrow computers for the year. This stuck out to me because in the US, I am very used to the expectation that students must be responsible for their own computer. This shows an effort to meet students based on individual needs because not everyone has to buy a laptop specifically for school, which is not usually an ideal situation.
Following this, we took a double decker bus to the City South Campus. Of course, we had to check out the top deck of the bus. It was neat to see the road and city from that perspective!
Once we got to this BCU campus, which is where we will be spending most of our classroom time, we got to try their cafeteria food and we had our first lesson from Chinenye on burn care. It was clear how passionate she is about her specialty, which is burn care, and this made it even more interesting to learn about a subject I did not have much prior knowledge in. In low-income countries, burns are one of leading causes of death and disabilities. Internationally, over 11 million people seek medical treatment for burns each year. Chinenye made sure to emphasize to us how intense the impact of burns can be on not just the patients, but their families too. They create a life-long impact on families. Parents of children who experience burn injuries often blame themselves and carry an extraordinary amount of guilt, thinking through the hundreds of ways that they could have prevented the incident, because often these accidents can happen in seconds.
In our lesson, we were also instructed on the best ways to immediately treat a burn. One main step to take after experiencing a harsh burn on your skin is to run it under cool water for 20 minutes. This should often be done before even going to the hospital. Running a burn under cool water assists with faster healing, a less severe depth, less of a need for an operation, and less days in the hospital. When it comes to being a professional working with a burn patient, we discussed burn assessment and what kind of steps to account for in this situation, a few being history, size, depth, and appearance. We also learned about the Parkland Formula, which determines how much resuscitation formula to give a patient.
Being aware of these common injuries, which can often lead to both death and disability, is very important because, as individuals, we can educate children and those around us on what we know. This can help spread important information and steps to take that not everyone is aware of. However, the more people that know, the more that old myths on treatment will be busted and the world will see less deaths and injuries stemming from burns.
To end our evening, I continued to explore the city of Birmingham with some friends. We checked out the library and were very impressed with its beautiful layout on the inside with color coordinated bookshelves. After this, we headed to Asha’s, an Indian restaurant, for dinner. As someone who loves Indian food, I was very excited to try out this restaurant, which was even visited (and highly reviewed) by Ed Sheeran. We got to try some delicious appetizers, like samosas and chicken with a yummy curry on top. For the main course, we got rice, butter chicken, lentils, a vegetable dish, and naan. I loved the butter chicken and had it with rice on a piece of naan. After dinner, a few of us tried out a gelato place we had been eyeing and it did not disappoint. The flavors I chose for my cone were pistachio, tiramisu, and chocolate, which had a very nice flower presentation.
Today was a great day and I look forward to learning more at BCU and trying more new foods tomorrow!