Day three was definitely a long one! We had four separate lectures along with a Black Heritage walk through the city of Birmingham! To start our learning off, we had a lecture on public health in the United Kingdom with Sara Zarti. To begin, we learned the definition of public health which is, “the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through the organized efforts of society,” with an emphasis on protection, prevention, and promotion, the three pillars of public health. We also learned about the association between social determinants of health and healthcare access, which starts preconception. One fact that I found very interesting about the United Kingdom’s healthcare system is that childhood immunization is required for all kids. They do this in order to protect the children but also to protect those around them. Overall, public health spanning the entire world, requires sharing information and policies to address transnational health issues.
Next, we attended a lecture on midwifery with midwives and students studying to become midwives. A midwife is a registered autonomous practitioner who is regulated by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). A point that I love about midwifery is that it is solely women-centered and relationship based. Although, this also means that they must go with the mother’s wishes even at the detriment of the fetus since it is considered to have no legal rights preconception. This also relates to the notion that women can have abortions throughout their entire pregnancy although it is recommended to have the abortion 12 weeks or less during pregnancy for the mother’s safety. One of the most interesting facts I learned during this lecture was that breastfeeding protects women from breast and ovarian cancer!
After our midwifery lecture, we had a break for lunch, before attending our third lecture of the day which was a lecture on mental health nursing with Jonathan Gadsby. Mr. Gadsby began his lecture by sharing a shocking statistic that there are fewer mental health beds now than in the past (24,000 beds in 2026, which is one-sixth of the beds present than in the past). Next, we talked about the term “institutionalization” introduced by a sociologist named Goffman and its definition: implies that someone may lose their former identity and become an “inmate” or “patient” completely losing their personal narrative in the process. This led to the conclusion that there is a relationship between mental health hospitals and mental health patients which is that mental health hospitals make mental health patients. This led to home treatment service in which mental health professionals see their patients on a daily basis (sometimes more often) for up to three years with the goal to keep them from being hospitalized. Due to the home treatment service introduced, mental health nursing became more of a community job or a short term hospital job.
One of the most important aspects that we talked about during our mental health lecture was the definition of distress leading to a deeper understanding of the word empathy. An important aspect of the word distress, is that distress is a part of health and does not automatically become a symptom of illness. People viewing distress as a symptom of illness is medicalizing the term which means that something is not necessarily medical but is treated as such. Carl Jasper, an important author, wrote that there are two ways to categorize stress: understanding or explanation. Understanding leads to the definition of real empathy, which Jasper describes as the ability to first know yourself, and then to know about others and the range of possibilities that exist in the world. One must become a student of sociology and psychology. This goes further than the simple definition of empathy that many people think about which is to put yourself in someone else’s shoes and it is a lecture that I will take with me throughout my life.
Finally, for lecture four, we met Marcia who was also our tour guide for the Black Heritage walk. What really stuck out for me was the inclusive mindset that Marcia had throughout the day with us. When she talked about the term enslavement and the people that were enslaved, she made sure to include the Irish because white women and children were also enslaved during that time period. Along with this, she also wanted to include all parts of history (the good and bad) which contributed to her opinion that statues of past history figures should remain standing even if there were bad parts to their lives and personalities. She stated that taking the statues down wouldn’t change history and they might as well stay up in order to further educate people. Overall, we ended our tour with dinner at Jamaya, a Jamaican restaurant. It was a beautiful place to sit down and enjoy a meal, and now it’s time to get a good night’s rest!