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On a hot July morning, Kathleen Scarry, clinical lecturer in nursing at IU South Bend, poses a question to a roomful of students. The question: What are the top social and cultural values in your country? For a moment, there is silence.
Then, the responses listed on the board immediately suggest that different cultures distribute social and cultural values in a distinctly different order:
American
Irish
In a simple yet effective way, IUSB nursing students and six visiting nursing students from the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, compare the cultural values that will influence their professional careers.
The course is "American Health Care: International Experience," a classroom experience organized by Marian Martin Pettengill, dean of nursing, and co-taught by Cyndi Sofhauser, assistant professor of nursing, as part of an exchange program which sent three IUSB nursing students to the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, and brought six nursing students here. The program is the first formal international undergraduate nursing exchange program in the IU system.
The exchange allowed each group a fresh perspective on nursing by experiencing a different culture's practice and philosophy of health care. The class, which focused on international issues in health care, is just one way the exchange experience was broadened to include IUSB nursing students here at home.
The success of the program already can be measured by an IU international enhancement grant made to Pettengill, which helped support her return to the University of Ulster this past October. While there, she presented a seminar on managed care and nurse practitioners to students and faculty, and explored possibilities of continuing and expanding the exchange program to include the field of radiography.
The success also is measured by the professional growth and personal memories of the exchange students. Each group spent approximately six weeks abroad; each was assigned to observe a variety of clinical settings and to attend university-level classes.
The strongest memories of IUSB students involved the care of the very young. Newborns and their mothers stayed hospitalized for 10 days and then were visited at home daily for almost two weeks. For the first five years of life, every Northern Ireland child is visited regularly at home by a nurse.
Nurses in Northern Ireland, although terribly underpaid, are greatly respected.
"You really got the feeling a nurse is this great person there," said student Pam Arndt. There, midwives deliver 90 percent of the babies. But it's the physicians who take blood pressure and chart the health of the respiratory and cardiovascular systems. "Nurses concentrate on bedside care," said student Bethany Nine.
IUSB nursing graduate Sue Anderson, an associate faculty member, designed the clinical experiences provided to the University of Ulster students during their stay here to present a broad perspective. The Northern Ireland students observed such health-care facilities as a migrant workers' site, South Bend's Homeless Center, the parish nursing facilities of the Broadway Christian Church and the Chapin Street Health Center, a clinic sponsored by St. Joseph's Medical Center.
While the IUSB students stayed both in homes and in dormitories, the Northern Ireland students spent their entire stay in South Bend-area homes.
And there were some travel experiences as well. "Chicago was a wee bit of a shock," noted Breige Convery of Ulster, "but fun after we got used to it."
For her part, IUSB's Arndt notes that while she left Ireland with a deeper understanding of health care, "I'll always remember having tea and receiving the coat of arms from the mayor of Ballymoney."