From communities in the Americas to Africa and Asia, UMSN faculty and students make summer a global health season.
“It is essential for our students to develop an understanding of communities, cultures and values beyond what they are accustomed to in order to provide the culturally competent care that every person deserves,” says University of Michigan School of Nursing (UMSN previous Dean) and professor
Kathleen Potempa, Ph.D., RN, FAAN. “That’s why exposing students to different populations right here in Southeastern Michigan, across the country, and across the world is a vital part of the foundation of a UMSN education.”
Students in nursing school often have difficulty accommodating travel during the school year due to their rigorous class and clinical schedules. Many of them make the most of summer break for global health learning experiences. Faculty members also see summer as an opportunity to refresh and expand their own global health knowledge, by leading or participating in programs abroad. Take a quick tour of some new sites:
Mexico -- Four faculty members--Clinical Assistant Professor
Amby Gallagher, Ph.D., APRN-BC, and Clinical Instructors
Ann Gosselin, DNP RN CEN CPEN,
Tina Leech, RN, MSN, and Mary Martinez-McCormick, FNP-BC,--participated in the language immersion program
Spanish for Health Care Professionals, at the
Instituto Cultural Oaxaca (ICO) in Mexico. Accompanied by two UMSN students and eleven U-M students representing fields such as medicine, dentistry and social work, the faculty used the opportunity to improve their own Spanish skills (as needed) and worked in local clinics. Alumna Michelle Fry (BSN ’76) also participated in the program because she wanted to improve her medical Spanish skills for her volunteer work at a local clinic in Naples, Florida. “My time in Oaxaca will benefit my clinical practice in that it reminded me of the significance and importance of cultural sensitivity,” says Martinez-McCormick. “It is more than just being able to speak the language; it is also knowing the patients’ lived experience. It is very important to always try and ascertain the patients’ point of reference in planning their care and helping them understand their medical conditions.”
“The Oaxacan people I encountered willingly shared their viewpoints on families, health, work, and provided deeper insight to long-standing local traditions,” says Leech. “These enlightening cultural exchanges will further assist me as an educator to offer realistic cultural diversity challenges within nursing care simulation scenarios as well as within the hospital.”
Indonesia -- International collaboration was a key focus of the first workshop for the
United States-Indonesia Partnership Program (USIPP) Consortium, which is dedicated to developing new research partnerships. More than 60 educators and administrators, including UMSN Clinical Assistant Professor
April Bigelow, Ph.D., ANP-BC, AGPCNP-BC, attended the event at Gadjah Mada University. “Three experts from each university got together into small groups based on interest,” said Dr. Bigelow. “My group’s focus was ‘Food, Water, and Health.’ We came up with several projects, proposed funding sources, and a timeline and plan for future communication. So often we tend to work within our discipline and only call in experts from other fields when necessary. This workshop provided the opportunity to work differently: we got several professions together with a common interest and then determined ways that we could jointly work toward an outcome, while each bringing our unique talents and expertise.”
Other UMSN global experiences in Summer 2014:
--Junior Hea Jun Oh utilized a Wallenberg International Summer Travel Award for her work in Tagbilaran City,
Philippines. She volunteered at a local elementary school to educate students about basic health education such as personal hygiene, infectious diseases, non-infectious diseases, sexual education and healthy lifestyle choices.
--UMSN continued efforts to expand 
interdisciplinary cooperation through a community health field experience in Ecuador. Nine nursing students, five students from the U-M College of Literature, Science and Arts and one from the College of Engineering, spent two weeks staying with Ecuadorian families while working at a primary care and emergency clinic, neighborhood clinics. They also volunteered for community outreach programs and prepared education materials. Learn more about UMSN’s history of global health experiences in Ecuador.
--Junior Lucia Michelazzo Ceroni received a Summer in South Asia Fellowship from U-M’s Center for South Asian Studies. The fellowship allows students to design their own research program. Ceroni worked with Swami Vivekananda Youth Movement in Bangalore. The organization focuses on Health, Education, Socio-Economic Empowerment and TRAC (Training, Research, Advocacy & Consultancy).
--Assistant Professor Ellen Lavoie Smith, PhD, APN-BC, AOCN® and her son Asa Smith, a UMSN student, traveled to Kenya with MichiKen, a nonprofit organization. The Smiths taught a class to high school seniors on the basic structure of the nervous system, with an emphasis on reflexes. Asa also highlighted HIV neurologic manifestations as reported in the literature based on a descriptive study of children with HIV in Nigeria. Dr. Smith and UMSN alumna Terri Voepel-Lewis toured a local hospital and nursing school to discuss recommendations for training, general nurse care and infrastructure related to their goals to establish a chemotherapy outpatient clinic.
--UMSN continues to build relationships with Thai universities and community agencies in several ways. Faculty members Marjorie McCullagh and Janean Holden, with three graduate students, traveled to Thailand to meet with faculty and students from Chiang Mai and Mahidol Universities, as part of U-M’s Rackham Graduate School’s Global Engagement for Doctoral Education (GEDE) program. The UMSN team and their Thai colleagues are creating a yearly summer research institute for PhD students, with the goal of collaborative projects. This trip was arranged in conjunction with inaugural Asian Congress in Nursing Education, where UMSN Dean Potempa gave the keynote address, "East-West Collaboration for the Advancement of Nursing Education in Asia." UMSN is also embarking on a five-year program focused on strengthening research of non-communicable diseases in Thailand.
--Senior Magdalene Kuznia worked with Child Family Health International (CFHI) in Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Her month-long experience combined helping in a local clinic and participating in medical Spanish lessons at a language school. Focus areas included proper assessment and communication with a Spanish-speaking patient.
Upcoming global experiences
Planning is underway to give undergraduate students a
community health field experience in
India. Clinical Instructors
Norma J. Sarkar, MPH, RN, (previous instructor) Amber L. Dallwig, MSN, RN and Director of Global Outreach Leslie Davis, PhD, will travel to Salokaya College of Nursing in New Delhi to plan programs for students, visit community health clinics where the students will be placed, and assess operational needs such as housing and transportation. They will also work on expanding UMSN’s capacity for videoconferencing with Salokaya faculty and students.
Learn more about the experience of a UMSN student at Salokaya.
Note: UMSN's Office of Global Outreach is available to consult on aspects of travel and projects abroad (opportunities, resources, best practices, more), whether sponsored by U-M or not. Remember: All international travel should be recorded in the U-M Travel Registry, to enable U-M to help provide support in case of emergencies.
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