International Week

The Faculty of Health Sciences implemented their first International Week. I believe the goal for this is to create partnerships between various universities who may send students here for clinical experiences. I learned that if a student comes from another country he or she is assigned a Hungarian student to show them around as all the signage in the hospitals and clinics is in Hungarian. They are assigned to a clinical situation in which the head nurse or whatever also speaks English. They are also assigned a clinical mentor and clinical instructor from the Faculty.

Professors came from Greece, Turkey, England and Austria. I walked first to the hotel where they were staying and we a did a bit of a tour of the historical sites between the hotel and a University building where we held our meetings.

Here is a photo within the Cella Septichora. The two women on the left are from Turkey. They made the point that it wasn't Turkey that invaded this area of Hungary, it was the Ottoman Empire, and that the Turkish people were also subjucated to the Ottoman Empire. The women in red is from Greece.

At the University building we had lunch including a taste of a candy called Turkish Delight. This is about the size and texture of a marshmallow, but oh so much better, and I'm uncertain what the middle is made from. These were left in the Board Room overnight where we had the lunch and had totally disappeared when we returned the next day!

In the afternoon we each gave a presentation about our university and then specially its Department of Nursing or Faculty of Health Science. This is Dr. Gebre-Yesus, originally from East Africa. He comes from Oxford Brookes University.

Other students and faculty  came for the presentations. After the presentations we enjoyed coffee and discussion time. The students that are seated are from Oxford Brookes. The student standing is from Portugal and has been in one of the English classes in which I've been teaching.

In this photo the women in the white sweater, who I caught speaking with someone elsewhere, is Brigitta. She is one of the English teachers, but has been graciously meeting with me once weekly for a Hungarian lesson. The women in the red sweater is Panayota from Greece. Next to her is another the students from Portugal. This student wanted to come to Hawaii to work and I had to give him the bad news that the Nurse Visa program expired on 12/31/09. He is is now engaged in whether Greece might be an option. It is really our loss, for this is the one of the brightest students that I've ever encountered.

We enjoyed a dinner at what is my favorite restaurants in Pecs.

The next day we gathered again for a tour of health care facilities.

Here is a photo of what is called the Nephrology Clinic. This building was constructed in 1995. The clinic provides both inpatient and outpatient services. Everything related to renal disease, diabetes, and hypertension can be done here except for kidney transplants. (For heart transplants we were told that the only place is Budapest and that one place in the country is enough for a population of 10 million. If only we could learn the lesson about not duplicating high level tertiary services, that sometimes only serve ego and marketing purposes rather than health care needs of populations.)

Here is the nephrology lab. It is found to be helpful to have everything in the same place. If a kidney biospsy is done, the lab work is done in the same building only a few steps away from the patient and the doctors involved.

Here is view of one of the nursing stations. I was struck with how quiet the area was. The rooms are two or four beds each with its own bathroom. One ward has 24-28 patients. Everything was very clean. There is very little technology, yet they are doing high level procedures here all the time.

Nurses work 12 hour shifts but they are a bit staggered. The usual staffing pattern is 3 nurses coming at 6 AM to relieve 2 nurse who have been there since 6 PM. In the "afternoon" 2 more nurses come and work a 12 hour shift that overlaps somehow the two 12 hour shifts that go 6-6.

I learned a lot a great deal about the advantages of a national health system when it comes to organizing care, and the only disadvantage seems to be not enough money which appears to be exactly the same problem we have with our largely private system.

In the afternoon each of the visiting faculty gave a presentation and I learned a great deal more about the condition of nursing in each of the countries, how nursing education is done, and more about issues that relate to Global Health that will be helpful for developing a Global Health course at my own university.

I'm very, very grateful to have had this opportunity. And now in a short bit I'm off for a tour of University lbirary and then we are going to Villany for wine-tasting and dinner. It's a hard life but someone has to do it.

Well it will be a bit hard. I have to be on a train tomorrow morning at 5:23 going to Budapest! Probably the blog will be silent until sometime on Sunday when I'll tell you about Villany and Eger.