---

During the summer of 2004, I had the opportunity to participate in a study abroad program offered by Florida International University. It was here that I was able to observe various hospitals and units in an aim to better understand the Italian culture in respect to healthcare. Surprisingly and at the same time simply enough, I came to a conclusion: nurses may be in different countries but the essence of the nurse remains the same. I found that many of the nurses interacted with their patients and with each other in similar ways as I have experienced here, in the United States. I was able to photograph the nurses as they did their work and I was intrigued that there were similar aspects of nursing that I saw such as teamwork and camaraderie. The photos show the nurses doing routine care such as working together with a patient to fix his endotracheal tube, looking at the schedule book for the next week, and holding a baby who had been discharged earlier who had come back to visit. While taking photos of the nursing staff, I saw that they were just as interested about nursing in the United States as I was about nursing in Italy. The photos were taken at different hospitals in Rome but mainly in the Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital. The photos for comparison are from Miami Children's Hospital. The learner will be able to (a) visualize the universality that nurses from across the world share and (b) see how this cultural experience was applied at Miami Children's Hospital. The purpose of this poster presentation is to expose other nurses to potential areas of growth that can result from a cross-cultural experience at an individual and corporate level.