USF World News

USF nursing students get clinical experience in Barranquilla, Colombia

Written by Barbara Howe

TAMPA, FL (June 28, 2024) -- Twins Rosalba and Marisol Neri-Baxcajay don’t only share a genome, they also share a passion for public health. The two sisters are recent graduates of USF’s nursing program who traveled to Barranquilla, Colombia this past spring to participate in a 10-day clinical program with USF’s partner of more than 30 years, Universidad del Norte (read more about this longstanding partnership between the two universities). 

All nursing students must complete clinical rotations as part of their training. In their last semester, they complete their public health clinical rotation where options usually include working in local schools or health centers around the Tampa Bay area, but at USF students can also apply to be selected to do a global public health clinical rotation in Barranquilla, Colombia. Marisol and Rosalba applied and were chosen along with 17 other students from USF to travel to the South American country this past March where they joined up with nursing students from Universidad del Norte (UniNorte) and performed community health assessments at various sites around the city. They were accompanied by their professors, Dr. Ivonne Hernandez, Director Community-Based Learning & Civic Engagement, and Dr. Elizabeth Jordan, Senior Associate Dean of Student Success.

 “The partnership between USF and UNINORTE Nursing continues to grow stronger,” said Dr Hernandez. “Our students meet virtually with UNINORTE students and faculty before traveling to support engagement and learn about US and Colombian healthcare systems. They work together in Barranquilla to identify and assess common health issues in the regional context while delivering health education and nursing interventions.”

For Rosalba and Marisol, it was their first overseas trip. “When we heard about the opportunity to do our public health clinical abroad, we were so excited to be able to travel while being in nursing school at the same time,” said Marisol, who has a double major in health sciences. Rosalba’s other major is in public health.

Joining them on the trip was Dianna Ramos-Hernandez, another nursing student who also attended the program. “For me, this trip was an opportunity to learn more about Colombian culture and its healthcare system.” It was also Dianna’s first study abroad trip, and she wishes she had gone sooner. “I am also Hispanic, but I grew up here in the States and so this was a perfect opportunity for me to see how healthcare in other Latin American countries works. I think it’s important to see not only the similarities and differences but also learn about the social determinants of healthcare and what kind of disparities exist that might be impacting people’s health.”

All three nursing students graduated in May, and by June they were preparing to take their licensing exams. Dianna recently accepted a position working in the ICU at Tampa General Hospital. Marisol and Rosalba also plan to stay and work in the Tampa Bay area. The program in Colombia helped them gain valuable experience that will help them compete on the job market.

As part of their practicum, the USF students, along with seven students from the nursing school at UniNorte, completed the community health assessments in low-income communities in rural areas around the city of Barranquilla. These assessments consisted of conducting interviews during at-home visits, evaluating the communities’ health needs, and giving public health presentations to educate the public. “During the interviews, we would ask questions about their health history, take some basic health measures such as blood pressure, etc,” said Rosalba. “We also talked to them about nutritional health. A lot of these communities were low income though and they already know what they need to do but they just don’t always have the resources to carry it out.” She hopes the students can bring more supplies with them next time, especially sunscreens because a lot of people in those communities do hard manual labor in the sun and sunscreens are very expensive. 

The students stayed together in a hotel and went on their excursions as a group instead of splitting up. “Every day, whichever group was assigned to that location, that was their day to do their assignment while the rest of us observed,” Dianna explained. This way everyone got a fuller picture of the health landscape in the city.

“We also got to tour the biggest hospital in Barranquilla, which was very exciting. I was glad they gave us that level of behind-the-scenes access,” said Marisol.

The students worked collaboratively on public health education projects at the various sites around the community which included community health centers, daycare centers, and one at UniNorte itself. “We gave one presentation on the early signs of ADHD in children for example. Another was at a local polytechnical [vocational training] school for girls up through high school age,” said Rosalba. Students from USF’s Manatee and Sarasota campuses also attended the program and Rosalba, Marisol, and Dianna were able to provide translation for the non-Spanish-speaking students. “That was an advantage for us, too, we were able to bring different cohorts together and be a bridge between them.”

Dianna said the day they visited the community resource center was one of the most impactful moments of the trip for her. “It was in a very poor part of the city and we got to speak directly with the community members. They are a very tight-knit community even though a lot of them lacked basic necessities like A/C and running water, but they all knew each other and trusted one another.”

 “The collaboration between USF and UNINORTE nursing students increases cultural sensitivity, global health awareness, and interconnectedness to prepare engaged professionals who serve as advocates and change leaders in healthcare,” Dr Hernandez added.

The students also worked together on a service-learning project connected to the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These are projects designed to help students apply the skills they learn in the classroom to problems in the “real” world. The SDGs were developed in 2015 to promote sustainable economic development. In this case, USF students were put in communication with a UniNorte nursing student before the program started so that they could design a project together. Marisol, Rosalba, and Dianna all worked on the same project. “Our project was connected with SDG #3, which is to ensure healthy lives” Rosalba explained. The goal was to investigate unmet health needs in the community that the students could then contribute to rectifying. “As a group, we decided that we wanted to present at the all-girls polytechnical school about preventative sexual health care, so our target audience was adolescent girls.” Their group created an infographic about sexual health and did a collaborative activity in the school. 

Rosalba and Marisol grew up in Ruskin. Their parents were farmworkers and had to travel long distances for work. They went into nursing to help give back to their community. For Dianna, nursing was a way to have a real impact on one’s community and cultural representation was important to her. “Being treated by someone who looks like you can make a patient feel more comfortable, more confident, more understood, more heard, and that’s important to me. I wanted to go into nursing to increase representation for people who look like me.” 

All three students gave the Colombia program high marks for having a big impact on both them and the communities they worked in. Dianna appreciated how the USF-UniNorte program in Colombia highlights the importance of a holistic, community approach to public health. “If a kid doesn’t have access to running water, the only time they can brush their teeth is maybe when they’re at school. So social factors like that really impact a person’s health outcomes.” Rosalba and Marisol valued the educational aspect of the experience. “I feel like I got so much out of doing this trip,” Rosalba said. “I learned more from them than they did from me!”

"If you have the opportunity to study abroad,” added Dianna, “Do it! You won’t regret it!”