Global Service Learning Project Influences Culturally Sensitive Care

Abstract

Global service learning opportunities provided nursing students with the opportunity to experience a health care system that was unfamiliar to them and to interact with health care providers within that system. Service learning is a part of professional education that allows students to demonstrate their ability to apply and synthesize knowledge while it sharpens nursing students’ critical thinking skills. Faculty and students from a southeastern university combined a global health care experience with an integrated research—service learning project targeted at “needed services” in a rural Russian primary care clinic. The purpose of this global service learning project was to (a) offer nursing students a global health care learning experience and (b) examine the prevalence of components of the metabolic syndrome among the population of Kuzmolovsky, Russia, through screening activities. Students, with the help of a translator, conducted teaching sessions based on screening results. Programs were planned in advance and careful consideration was paid to treatment recommendations that would be readily available in Russia. Kuzmolovsky health care providers were so enthusiastic that faculty and students were requested to return. Students found that the global experience increased their self-confidence and that it offered insight into providing culturally sensitive care when working with populations from different cultures.