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Monday, 18 November 2013
Learning Objective 1: The learner will be able to identify the long-term personal impact of participating in a short-term study abroad course.
Learning Objective 2: The learner will be able to identify the long-term professional impact of participating in a short-term study abroad course.
The globalization of healthcare requires that nurses be equipped with skills to care for a multi-cultural patient population. Providing care to diverse groups is introduced in the undergraduate nursing curriculum. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing’s Essentials of Baccalaureate Education for Professional Nursing Practice (2008) asserts that attention to cultural diversity is necessary for safe, quality care. The School of Nursing at one Midwestern university currently offers four short-term study abroad courses in which undergraduate students can enroll to fulfill their nursing elective requirement. Over 80 students have participated in these 10-day immersion courses since their implementation in 2006. End-of-course evaluations were overwhelmingly positive. Yet faculty questioned the long-term benefits of participating in such a course. The literature provides very little evidence of the long-term benefits of short-term study abroad courses. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore registered nurses’ perceptions of the long-term effects of participating in a short-term study abroad course as an undergraduate student. The researchers have conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews of eight registered nurses who participated in one of the short-term study abroad courses at this Midwestern university. Participants were asked to reflect upon their study abroad nursing course and how it has impacted their intellectual and professional development, their personal and international perspectives, and the way in which they provide nursing care. Data analysis is in progress using Colaizzi’s phenomenological interpretive method.