Global citizenship. Cultural diversity. High-impact experiences. These are ideas that have become cornerstones of traditional higher education in the United States, as colleges and universities work through study abroad programs to prepare their students for life in what has increasingly become a “smaller” world.
But for many nursing students, that cultural aspect of their education has been more difficult to come by. While most nursing colleges have long offered elective cultural diversity courses that typically include a week or two spent abroad, it is very rare for a nursing school to offer a true overseas clinical experience as part of the regular curriculum. Thanks to a new collaboration with Mercy Hospital in Kolkata (formerly known as Calcutta), India, Cox College is one of only a handful of nursing colleges in the United States that now does.
Dr. Anne Brett, president of Cox College, says the school has been looking for an opportunity to expose students to true cultural diversity for some time.
“We currently send students to Haiti with a mission group as part of a cultural diversity class,” she says. “They go for two weeks and do great things, but it’s not a nursing course. We wanted to do more.”
That “more” will begin in February 2012, when a group of 10 Cox College students and one faculty member will travel to Kolkata for a six-week clinical rotation as part of a semester-long course on community health. While at Mercy Hospital, the students will observe the care provided throughout the facility – the 173-bed hospital has a critical care unit, an OR, a full-service obstetrics program and more.
Students will also visit other facilities in India, including Mother Teresa’s Home for the Dying. They’ll also travel to several clinics outside Kolkata operated by Mercy staff, where the students will be able to perform primary care assessments. They will keep up with their classmates through online learning and Cox College discussion boards, sharing their Kolkata experience with those still in Springfield.
“We may only have 10 students in Kolkata, but all 40 students in the class will benefit from what they’re learning,” says Dr. Tricia Wagner, dean of nursing.
The relationship with Mercy Hospital developed from Cox College’s ties to Evangel University. Dr. Mike Tenneson, an Evangel professor who serves as academic advisor to Evangel’s pre-nursing students, traveled to Kolkata last year to do mission work. While there he spent time at Mercy Hospital and, knowing that Cox College was interested in developing an international study program, he floated the possibility to leadership at Mercy.
Mercy was interested, and arrangements were made for a hospital representative to visit with Cox College leadership while stateside. After that visit, and after a lot of emailing back and forth about the logistics, Dr. Brett says it started to look like the program was going to get off the ground.
“That’s when I said to Tricia, ‘If we’re going to do this we need to go look at it. Because I need to not only see it but feel it, so I know as an administrator and as a parent that I would be comfortable sending our students there,’” says Brett.
In March, Brett, along with Wagner and Tenneson, traveled to Mercy Hospital to make an in-person assessment of the facility. The group spent time in the hospital and visited some of the Mercy clinics and the Mercy nursing school. While they were struck by the differences between Kolkata and Springfield, the group came away satisfied that Cox College students could not only successfully complete their clinical education, but that they might be able to share some of their knowledge with Indian health care providers, particularly the nursing students.
“There are a lot of opportunities to really make this a collaborative experience,” Brett says.
While there, students will also help with Mercy’s feeding program, which provides meals to 25,000 of India’s poor every day. They will be able to live in a hostel about a block away from the hospital. College leaders hope these experiences help the students not only refine their nursing skills, but give them a better sense of how health care is practiced around the world.
“We are so cutting edge at Cox that seeing robotic surgery and labor and delivery suites is normal to us,” says Wagner. “When you see nurses working without gloves and removing their shoes to work in critical care units you get a whole different view of how health care is practiced elsewhere.”
Now that the agreement is in place, the college is busily putting the final pieces of the course together. Brett expects the first two weeks, which will occur before these final-year nursing students go overseas, to be heavily loaded with cultural information.
“We want these students to have an understanding of the Indian people and their culture before they go,” she says.
The cost to students will be approximately $2,500, in addition to their regular tuition and fees. That will cover their transportation, visa, room and board, and any medications they may need, such as those that prevent malaria and typhoid. If that cost is added as a section fee for the class, Dr. Brett says students may be able to use financial aid to help offset the cost.
The college will spend the same amount to send a faculty member with the group. That faculty member will teach the Cox College students in India as well as an online course, maintaining a regular full workload.
The college is planning to hold an orientation session in the fall before students register for classes, so that those who are interested in the India experience can learn more. But it won’t be a first-come, first-served opportunity. Interested students will also go through an interview process to see if they are the right fit for the program.
“Six weeks is a long time to be out of your culture,” says Brett. “We need to ask these students what their objectives are, why they want to go and what their travel experience is. We need to make sure we have the right group.”
A lot is hinging on that first group’s experiences. If they’re successful, Cox College may eventually send two groups a year to Mercy Hospital, and radiography students may be able to do rotations at Mercy’s clinics. In time, Brett says Cox College may be able to really affect nursing care in India through their online master’s in nursing program. Indian nursing students could take the online courses and then complete their in-person training when the Cox College faculty member is in Kolkata for the clinical rotation.
But more than anything, both Brett and Wagner believe this experience will arm students with the knowledge they need to succeed.
Says Wagner: “We are educating nurses at Cox College who will make a difference in a wide variety of places. We want to give them the tools to broaden their horizons and dream big.”
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