Global Integration Celebration Unites Fellows
Over the summer, the Office of Global Initiatives held a Global Integration Celebration for the Global Fund Fellows, who spent six weeks in April-May 2024 immersed in clinical practicums and conducted research in communities, local health centers, and hospitals. Thirty-seven students were placed at 12 sites this year across India, Italy, Jamaica, Jordan, Kenya, Spain, Thailand, The Gambia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Zambia.
The celebration acted as an opportunity for students to reminisce, receive recognition, and share memorable moments. Attendees viewed the best photos taken by fellows at each site. These photos, submitted as part of a competition, are to be featured in a calendar, the first of its kind.
This event also came at just the right time – this year marks the 10th anniversary of the Global Student Clinical Program, which Columbia University School of Nursing will celebrate with faculty, staff, students, and other alumni in the coming months. At the gathering, attendees will share how their views on and commitment to improving global health equity have evolved.
Continue below to see the photos and read about some of the fellows’ most memorable experiences.
Location: Bengaluru, India
Memorable experience:
“Personally, it was the interaction with people there, the human relationship, the fact that they understand that how you treat people matters a lot in health outcomes. That was very, very eye-opening for me. I saw the nurses call patients, 'Auntie, Uncle, Papa.' At first, I felt like that was too personal, but I realized that they felt safe in the hands of that nurse.”
Memorable photo: Click here
Location: Panchgani, India
Memorable experience:
“While we were at Bel Air, they had a College of Nursing festival at Bel Air, CONFAB. It was their first annual one. They had students from seven-ish nursing schools across the state that we were in. And it was two or three days. They had everything from sports to trivia to art and different writing competitions inter-school. We got to interact with all these students who are in the same position as us, a little younger. They're straight out of high school and they get out of high school a little earlier. But it was good to interact with nursing students, learn what they're learning, learn about their processes, and be able to compare it to our own here at Columbia.”
Memorable photo: Click here
Location: Turin, Italy
Memorable experience:
"At Ospedale Regina Margherita, I was embraced by incredible preceptors whose knowledge and passion transformed my understanding of nursing. By stepping out of my comfort zone, I interacted with a different health care system and learned how resources were utilized in innovative ways, which was completely different from my clinical experience in NYC. Their commitment to teaching and fostering a supportive environment demonstrated a unique approach to care that I aspire to incorporate into my own practice. I'm deeply grateful for the opportunity to learn in such a nurturing setting, where every day was a chance to grow and contribute."
Memorable photo: Click here
Location: Kingston, Jamaica
Memorable experience:
“In the postpartum ward, I really connected with one of the mothers there. She was a first-time mom, and she was struggling with feeding her baby and just getting her baby to go to sleep. I helped her for the few days that we were on the unit, and at the end, she said, 'You were my favorite.' And I said, 'Oh, my God.' But I also had to whisper because there were patients nearby, so I said, 'You were my favorite too.' "
Memorable photos: Click here
Location: Amman, Jordan
Memorable experience:
“Katherine and I got to go to the University of Jordan this year and both of us spent most of time in the intensive care unit (ICU). There was a woman who was hospitalized, had lung cancer. She was in the ICU for monitoring because she had to get oxygen therapy. I learned how to navigate the language barrier given that most patients only spoke Arabic. With careful physical assessment, it was very interesting and a memorable moment.”
Memorable photo: Click here
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Memorable experience:
“We showed up and the country had been going through a nationwide doctor strike. I was in the Emergency Department for the two weeks that I was there, and it was interesting. It was very empty, but they were admitting only critical cases and it was mostly a nurse-run show. I got to see basically everything in the textbooks come to life within those two weeks. I also practiced more skills than I could have imagined. I want to send a big shout out to the students there because they guided us through. I mean, when things are chaotic, it’s one thing to see things running as they're supposed to. But when things are just not in operational form, there was a lot of troubleshooting. The students really held our hands through the whole process. It was incredible.”
Memorable photo: Click here
Location: Pamplona, Spain
Memorable experience:
“I was on a medical-surgery unit and we had a couple of patients, actually two at the same time, who were both in different degrees of persistent vegetative states or a coma, and one of whom actually the family had wound up meeting with the care team and discussing that they were going to discontinue the supportive measures and transition him on to comfort care. And a lot of you may know, but I lost my mom to early onset Alzheimer's last November. The nurses in my unit were all doing a lot of the moving parts associated with this transition to comfort care for that patient. I remember getting asked to remove his nasogastric tube. And then I had taken my lunch earlier that day with the Unlicensed Assistive Personnel or auxiliaries from the unit. They asked me to sit with him and keep an eye on things in case something changed. At one point, the patient’s son had stepped out to let us do our initial work. Later, he came back with coffee, and I spent some time in silence and talked to him about what it means to lose a parent and what comes after. That was cathartic for me. I felt like that moment was going to be something that really sticks with me from my time in Spain and I'm grateful to have been there.”
Memorable photo: Click here
Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand
Memorable experience:
“We were in Thailand during Songkran, which is their New Year's festival. It's a five-day festival and in the hospital, they held a Songkran festival celebration. In America, we rarely get to do cultural celebrations in the hospital. We walked through each, there was a row of all the elder nurses and we paid our respects to them and they put water on our head. Ten of the nursing directors gave us a blessing. It was amazing how they bring culture into healthcare, paying respect. We greeted them with, ‘Happy New Year,’ and they responded with blessings, such as, ‘Good work! Good luck in your nursing journey!’ It was nice to experience this.”
Memorable photo: Click here
Location: West Africa, Banjul, The Gambia
Memorable experience:
“I think one special event that we all really embraced was a naming ceremony that we got to go to, which happened at the end of our six weeks. The naming ceremony is basically something in their culture where after seven days after birth, you start giving your baby a name. You invite all the family members, your friends. There are people around just to celebrate the birth of the baby, and then that's when you share the name of the baby with everybody who is around. During our time there, we were lucky enough to get invited by one of the moms whose baby we helped deliver. And when we went there, we missed the beginning of the ceremony, but they were very inviting. They prayed for us, hoping that we would make it through our nursing program, and it was just a very nice moment to just be around with everybody. It was a unique moment that we got to share with the people there, our patients, and everybody.”
Memorable photos: Click here
Location: Port of Spain, Trinidad & Tobago
Memorable experience:
“The people were the most memorable part, because everyone's so special, Dr. Ocho, especially. Our first weekend, where we were staying, most of the medical students on campus were veterinary students while some were medical students, and then it was us from Columbia Nursing. It was Easter weekend, and their tradition is to fly kites. The students were doing that and had this whole picnic with Caribbean food. And they invited us saying, 'If you can't contribute and can't get anything, just come, come, come.' They gave us a kite, and we did this whole ritual thing with them. It was just really, really fun and it immediately made us feel settled."
Memorable photos: Click here
Location: Lusaka, Zambia
Memorable experience:
“During one of the first couple of days, there was a baby that was brought in that had about 20% of his body burned. It was either day one or two, can't remember, because it was a blur. But it took three of us to really get in there to change the dressing, and we had to distract the baby. One was applying saline to try to clean the wounds, and then one of us was trying to rewrap the wrapping. But just really getting in there, trying to move quickly, us not being so familiar with where all the supplies and everything were, and then having a language barrier, we were able to just navigate and work together. We were not all in the same clinical group; some of us hadn’t worked with each other prior to our six weeks. It was really amazing, and it felt like we were truly coming together like a little family.”