Our third day in Birmingham has been the busiest one yet! We started off our day by heading to BCU. The morning started with a lesson on public health from Sarah Zarti, which can be defined as “the art and science of preventing disease, prolonging life, and promoting health through organized efforts of society” (WHO, 1988). These three main pillars of public health all come together under the UK public health system, which consists of many groups, with a few being UKHSA, NHS England, and OHID. Within the UK, there are some main public health priorities. Some of them include health inequalities, which is a life-expectancy gap between most and least deprived areas, mental health, and the aging population. One major priority for the USA that differs from the UK is access to health insurance. In the UK, almost all residents are covered by the NHS. However, the US does not have free-at-the-point-of-use coverage and instead relies on private insurance.
I thought it was interesting that within the NHS, there are multiple programs aiming to help residents achieve healthy lifestyles and prevent illnesses. The childhood immunisation programme, for instance, is mandatory from birth and is primarily delivered at general practitioner (GP) level. With a program like this, Dr. Zarti emphasized how it helps to keep others safe just as much as it keeps ourselves safe. By taking steps like this to keep a large population safe from certain diseases or viruses, it helps to build immunity and prevent potential outbreaks on a state or country level. One last takeaway I had goes a bit deeper into the topic of vaccination. In the UK, vaccination is generally required on a nation-level, but in the US, the requirements can vary from state to state, especially for school attendance. In the US, this leads to inconsistency when it comes to who is vaccinated for certain illnesses. As people travel between states with different vaccine coverage, pathogens can be more easily spread and potentially lead to an outbreak of an illness.
Our next lecture was about midwifery and it was great to hear from a group of women at all different stages of their career, but who are all so passionate about what they do. Prior to this lecture, I did not know the role of a midwife in the UK. Compared to the US, they seem to have a much higher prevalence since they basically replace the role of what a labor and delivery nurse is to us. Something I admired about midwifery is how there is the option for pregnant women for them to be supported by their midwife throughout their whole pregnancy and then afterwards during their postnatal period as well. This creates a trusting bond between the mother and her midwife and also can help support her safety. When a midwife is seeing their patient consistently throughout her whole pregnancy, they will be more likely to catch on if one day they walk in and something is not quite right with the mother’s health.
After our lunch break, we had a mental health lecture from Jonathan Gadsby, who has a PhD in voice hearing. He brought up a couple of key points that I think are important for everyone to consider, with the first one being about stress. The word “stress” without a doubt holds a negative connotation. Although, he reminded us that stress is not always a bad thing, in fact, distress is actually a part of health. As humans, it is essential for us to acknowledge our emotions and work through them rather than letting them build up. Dr. Gadsby also discussed empathy with us, which is a common trait for nurses, but he took understanding the concept of empathizing to a level I had not thought about before. People often define empathy as being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, which is a great first step, but it actually can go a bit deeper than this. A big part of being able to empathize that he mentioned included also considering why people are behaving a certain way based on their past experiences. Without this, individuals may find themselves making many assumptions and will keep hitting a wall with the person they are trying to empathize with.
Our final lecture was with Marcia, where we learned about Black Heritage. We learned about Birmingham’s history, the Windrush generation, and how people from Jamaica helped the UK rebuild after World War II. She also had a guest speaker, Mardna, come in to discuss her own experience as a Windrush nurse. We learned her experience in the 1970s with nursing, where the career was not nearly as highly-regarded as it is now. At the time, nurses were not as appreciated and were underpaid. Despite this being the case for Mardna, she had a very positive outlook and encouraged us to work hard and to never give up.
We finished up the afternoon with a tour around Birmingham, led by Marcia, where we took several stops at different statues or places around the city that held stories of Black history. It was interesting to hear more about a perspective of history that I was not super well-versed on. Marcia made a major point that in history, we must tell the whole story. When some people’s sides are left out, we are left with biased opinions as a population. Luckily, Birmingham does a fairly nice job with this as they have kept up original statues and monuments. She also added that even when a plaque may leave out one side of the story, it can always be added rather than trying to tweak or remove a piece of history as a whole.Overall, Marcia was very informative on topics that most of us did not have previous knowledge on and her animated story-telling helped to keep us engaged.
Finally, we ended our busy day with a yummy meal at Jamaya, a Jamaican restaurant! I had tried plantains before, but I had never been to a Jamaican restaurant or had a proper meal before. I got an avocado and plantain salad, which was delicious, with the plantains being my favorite part. I also tried a tasty mocktail that contained a Jamaican carbonated grapefruit beverage, called ting, along with mint and lime flavoring. This was a great way to end a productive day by eating new food and chatting with the amazing people on our trip. See you tomorrow!
