Before I had the opportunity to learn more about global health, I have to admit that I was not very informed on the subject or aware that there was such a thing as global health nursing for that matter. I had never considered the practice of nursing to be something that extended beyond the borders of the country in which I live. Yet, the discovery that I have the potential to change health outcomes and make differences to people around the world through increasing the scope of nursing considerations made me feel hopeful. The practice of global health nursing requires the realization that we live in a world of extended family; and, while people may live across different borders, many of the problems that complicate our lives and put health at risk are not encumbered by national restrictions. It is then up to clinicians of all specialties around the world to remain cognizant of how we are all connected and how we must intervene for one another regardless of race, religion, gender, or age.

      As an example of our connectedness, I would like to review one of the projects that we worked on for global health. One of our group projects required that we investigate the unique health practices of another country in an effort to increase our awareness of different practices around the globe. The country that we investigated was Canada. Although I was expecting similarities and differences between the United States and Canada in regards to health concerns, I found that I had many preconceived notions based on stereotypes based on national media sources that were incorrect. For instance, the picture painted by the American press regarding Canada’s socialized health care system paints the portrait of a very ineffective, bureaucratic system that keeps its citizens waiting unreasonable and extended periods of time for health services. The fact of the matter is that the Canadian health care system just endeavors to minimize expenditures on health while still giving Canadians other options for health care. One of the most interesting things I discovered about Canada is that they use a universal health care card that allows practitioners around Canada access to a patient’s health records even if it is a first time visit, which has the potential to reduce costs and avoidable patient complications such as polypharmacy. Overall, investigating Canada’s unique system of health care delivery opened my eyes to the fact that there are other ways to provide patient care that appear to be as effective as what we have in place here in the United States.

     While investigating international health care delivery models was certainly a key component of the Global Health experience, we also reviewed communicable diseases and non-communicable diseases around the globe and performed a community based teaching project in regards to one such issue. Due to the large senior population we have here in central Florida and rumors of how wide-spread sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are among this group, my partner and I decided to visit a small group of people in this community and educate them on STI prevention. At first, the thought of approaching our community seniors with this type of information was a little awkward but then, after researching the statistics regarding the prevalence of STIs among seniors and knowing how their population is exponentially growing, it became obvious that a serious disparity exists among this group in regards to health teaching and clinician assessment. Because of either generational taboos regarding the discussion of sex practices as a group, the discomfort of providers in assessing sexual activity amongst seniors, or lack of education and misconceptions about safe sex practices, senior members of our population are becoming increasingly vulnerable to gonnorhea, syphilis, HIV/AIDS, and other STI’s only second to people the aged between 13-21 years old. Besides having a great time presenting information to these seniors, I walked away from the experience feeling satisfied and excited that I could include this type of education into my scope of practice.

      From learning more about world health practices and disparities of health care everywhere to teaching senior citizens how to prevent STIs, the time I spent learning more about global health was definitely fulfilling and a worthy pursuit. Learning more about health practices, communicable disease processes, age and gender-related disparities, emergency responsiveness to natural disasters and the sequelae to those events, and the groups and organizations who deal with these matters on a day to day basis will be lessons I can use in my daily practice of nursing as well as an inspiration to where I would like to take my nursing practice moving forward. In a world that gets smaller with every day that goes by because of technological advances and an ever-growing population we, as nurses, can no longer ignore the world beyond our borders. What touches one of us out in the world has the potential to affect all of us regardless of geography, socio-economic position, age, or gender. We need to be prepared to treat any person from any place at any time, because even though we may have different cultural practices we all share the commonality of being people who deserve as a basic human right, accessible health care, food, water, shelter, and clothing. As members of an educated group of professionals, it is up to nurses to advocate and work towards people everywhere attaining these basic human rights and to educate others of this necessity.