Health Teams Abroad Program Wins University Award
Posted on 8/2/2007
Students who traveled to Sweden in May as part of Health Teams Abroad – Sweden are, front row, from left, Kelley Ford, communication disorders, Kati McPhail, kinesiology, and Greg Henson, nursing, back row, from left, Amanda Young, psychology and pre-med, and J. Scott Steele, biophysics and pre-med.
Four College of Education and Health Professions faculty members are part of a team that will receive an award at the fall Academic Convocation for the study abroad experience they designed.
Fran Hagstrom, assistant professor of communication disorders, Charles Riggs, professor of kinesiology, Nan Smith-Blair, assistant professor of nursing, and Barbara Shadden, professor of communication disorders and co-director of the Center for Studies on Aging based in the college, teamed with colleagues in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences to design a study abroad program in which they traveled with five students to Sweden.
The Division of Student Affairs will present the 2007 Academic Convocation Faculty and Student Collaboration Award at the event that begins at 4 p.m. Aug. 19 at Bud Walton Arena on the University of Arkansas campus. Health Teams Abroad – Sweden will be featured in a short video presentation.
In a letter announcing the award, Shelia Burkhalter, director of First Year Experience, said the submission impressed the Student Affairs selection committee because of the active involvement of students, strong faculty-student interaction, the ability to excite students about academic involvement outside the classroom and academic excellence.
The Health Teams Abroad course proposal was one of eight selected for Honors College funding. Jeanne McLachlin, assistant director of the pre-medical program, and Neil Allison, associate professor of chemistry, both in Fulbright, completed the faculty team.
The students who spent three weeks in Sweden in May accompanied by faculty members were Kelley Ford, communication disorders; Kati McPhail; kinesiology; Greg Henson, nursing; Amanda Young, psychology and pre-med; and J. Scott Steele, biophysics and pre-med.
Students spent a week together before the trip, learning about each other and their disciplines, as well as spending time with the faculty members involved. Faculty members wanted the students to learn – and later see in action – how people trained in health fields must work as a team to best serve their patients.
During the on-campus portion of the course, the students learned about Sweden's health care system as well as its health-care educational system and how they differ from those in the United States. They participated in a simulated case study of a woman suffering from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and visited the St. Francis House in Springdale to consider how the case would be handled by a health-care team in Sweden.
Although English is a mandatory second language in Sweden, the country's culture and customs differ in many ways from the United States, said Hagstrom. She has traveled to the Scandinavian country 10 times, but this was her first experience taking students there.
Ford said the trip was successful in giving the students an understanding of working as a team player in the medical field.
"With the numerous study visits to the Ryhov (Swedish hospital), we were able to witness operations, make medical rounds and do and see many other things that we most likely would not be able to experience at home," Ford said. "Interviewing pulmonary doctors, phsysiotherapists, nurses and even professionals from Orebro's deaf-blind school reinforced the idea of the importance for teams in health care to improve the quality of life for patients who are in need.
"We now have returned to America having a better understanding of our future careers and are ready (and excited) to experience working as a team since we have learned how crucial it is in the medical field."
Students and faculty members also said the experience allowed them to interact on a different level, more as peers than they would have experienced in the typical classroom setting.
"When we went to dinner, we would always be out for more than two hours, and it wasn't because the service was bad," Young said. "We would start talking and it would take us forever to leave because we were so engrossed in our conversations."
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