Evaluation of my experience with the MINE

First of all I would like to thank each of you for a fantastic time in Finland! I feel like I have gained so much more than I expected to. I have learned a lot about the other MINE countries’ educations and the way nursing is practiced in the different countries and how nurses are viewed. I learned that even though we have different ideologies about the ways of practicing nursing and what role the nurse has in the society we are very alike and we all have the same gaol for our practise and our patients; we want to help them in any way we can and that we are proud to be nurses (or soon to be anyway J).

I think that what I have learned though the MINE project will be to my advances in the future wherever I will work. Europe is getting “smaller” in the way that more and more people travel to other countries to study, work, and live. This goes for nurses as well. When we travel we bring our own culture and understanding with us but we also learn something new in the country we are travelling to. Some cultures are very alike so “fitting in” will not be so difficult were others are very difference. This is what creates the challenge but at the same time what makes international nursing so interesting and exciting. I think we can learn a lot from each other and we can give each other good ideas as to how we can improve our nursing. This is way I think it is very impotent with Erasmus programs throughout Europe. The Erasmus programs help to bring down barriers and to establish exchange of information between the partners. And when you get to experience some of it yourself it is easier to explain it and perhaps implement some of the new knowledge in your own ward or school. And that is what the MINE project has done and I not think we are anywhere near the finishing line. I for one hope to experience much more of international nursing conferences, exchanges, and international colleagues.

 Before we meet in Finland we all to make a presentation of ourselves on Facebook. I think the general idea is good but I found it confusing that so many people where part of the group. As we said at the conference I think it would have been better if it was just this year’s delegations that were part of the Facebook group. I also like the idea of group photos for each country whit names attached to it. That way it would be easier to put a name to a face and in that way you already feel like you know just a little bit more about the people you are going to meet. Almost all students today have a Facebook account and we check in many times a day.   Facebook is not only a social tool but we used it to give information to everybody and it is easy to use and to ask quotations and to answer.

I really liked the films that were made and they gave an impression about the people who had made the films. Not one film was the same which goes to show how we all had our difference interpretation of the assignment. Maybe the films could be uploaded to the WIKI so others would benefit from them?  

The WIKI site is a brilliant idea. I hope in the future all the students who are toying with the idea of studying aboard will have the opportunity to visit the site. There are a lot of good and useful information on the site and the site is made for students by students which mean that there is information on the site you probably would not get by a site made by mentors or academics. We added the forum on the site so former exchange students could write about their experiences and students think about going on exchange could ask quotations. I really hope this will happen in the near future.     

Blogging has been one of the hardest things to do while we were in Finland. We were constantly bombarded with information and new impressions so I found it very difficult to reflect because most of it just seemed to be mixed together plus we rarely had time to be alone with our thoughts. But I think I did have a lot of reflections with the other students when we talked and discussed so maybe that is one of the reasons I found it hard to blog because I had already reflected a lot without thinking about the fact that I was reflecting. Does that make sense?

As an endnote I will once again thank all of you for a brilliant experience and for memories I can take with me for the rest of my life. I hope you all are well and I wish you all the best.

Best regards,

Nanna

The first week of MINE

Today is Sunday and the first week for MINE has ended. I feel like the days have just flown by with something to new to learn every day. And it has been great J

I really enjoyed the trip to the cottages and it was a very good experience to try the Finnish sauna and even the ice-cold water. It was a nice end to the day with the bonfire and to see how people who had every cocked sausages over a bonfire before was so into it.  

As with all group work we had some discussions about how to do our assignment and how to make the group work. It is only naturally when we come from six difference cultures and we are use to work in a certain way so compromises had to be made. But it all went very well.

The group work is coming along and we now have a more or less clear idea about our digital story. I think we have a pretty good and functional group (group 5) were everybody is active and full of great ideas. All of us are heard and we even speak over each other sometimes because we all have ideas and we are not afraid to speak English even though we make mistakes, which is really nice. We are all involved in helping develop the great ideas we have the group. Before we began the group work I thought there might be some language problems but that has not really been the case and when we are struggling to find the right word there are always someone who knows it (and is it not only the English ;p).

Doing our group work we constantly talk about the differences and similarities in our healthcare systems and how nursing is in our countries. One of the things we talked about is fixation in the mental health wards. In the UK they do not used fixation but medications and in Finland they have the cells for uncontrollable patients. It got me thinking. In Denmark we use fixation and most of the patients feel that is helps them. But on the other hand when we fixate we take away the patients human rights and the patient’s free will. I know that we only do it for the best of our patients but it is an assault. But then again drugging the patients does not the right way to go about it either. It is a very difficult and sensitive area of nursing and I have not got that much experience with this area so I cannot really evaluate what it the best way to help the mental patients. But it is a very interesting dissuasion.        

I know the upcoming week will be a lot of hard work and long day but I am looking forward to do our assignment and see how the other groups will go about their assignments.

That’s all for now have a nice Sunday J

Dresses or Trousers?

Thank you for last night – it was really cosy J

Yesterday was the day we saw all the films from the difference countries. It was really interesting to see the films and see how the nursing education is in the difference countries. In the film about the Czech Republic I noticed that the female nurses had a dress as a uniform. In Denmark we no longer use dresses because the female nurses did not like to wear them because they felt that they were too showing and that they sometimes was a obstacle when they had to help the patients.  Personally I prefer the trouser and jacket because they make me feel more safe.

In the same film the nurse students went “home” in their uniforms. I know that they do that in other countries as well but in Denmark we are not allow to bring our uniforms home because of the bacteria and the hygiene. And that just got me thinking how do you prevent your patients getting sick because of you?

Hi everyone

Hi everyone

Just one month untill we will meet in Pori. I'm really looking forward to see you all! Right know I'm busy with school and soon I have to prepare for my exams in January and at the beging of February. One written and one oral.

Nice weekend to you all :)