After just four short weeks, my study abroad trip in Graz has come to an end. While I am very sad to leave, I am so thankful for this amazing trip that has taught me so much!
Trip Summary
During my program, we studied Comparative Healthcare in the context of Austrian and US healthcare systems. We visited multiple hospitals, pharmacies and care facilities in order to experience first hand the differences in healthcare delivery. From this experience and my classes, I have ultimately learned that there are multiple different ways to deliver healthcare and that there are benefits and issues with both systems I have compared. In my future career, I will try to take what I have learned, innovations, values and more, from all these systems for a more well-rounded healthcare delivery.
In addition to studying, I also got to do a little bit of traveling of course! We visited three cities in Austria, Salzburg, Vienna, and Graz of course. I also got to go to Zagreb, Croatia and a nearby national park on my free weekend. To finish out the trip, we spent five days in Slovenia visiting Maribor and the capital Ljubljana as well as more rural parts! Each city was beautiful, with rich history and culture. My favorite to visit was definitely Vienna just because it is so beautiful and is filled with history from the being home at one point to the Habsburgs, famous composers, and my personal favorite, Sigmund Freud! Architecturally, it is also so gorgeous between the palaces and baroque buildings throughout the city center. It also happens to hold the famous painting by Gustav Klimt, “The Kiss”, which I got to see in person at Belvedere Castle!
I expected to absolutely love Vienna, but what I did not expect is to fall in love with Slovenia! In Slovenia, we visited two beautiful cities, Maribor and Ljubljana as well as Postojna Caves, which has three million year old caverns that we got to tour! My favorite excursion in Slovenia, however, was Lake Bled. The lake is home to a very small island with only a church, a gift shop and a gelato stand on it. The alps are seen not too far off in the distance, making this place absolutely gorgeous. It was probably the prettiest place I have ever been too and definitely the prettiest place I have ever swam at! I am so happy that we had enough time for a swim!
Reflection
Studying abroad has helped me grow in so many ways, including personally, academically and professionally. Personally, I have become more confident traveling alone. Studying abroad has also given me the opportunity to meet people from different cultures and backgrounds, so through this I have become a more culturally competent person. I have grown academically on this trip, as I was able to manage school while still fitting in sightseeing and navigating the city and language barriers. Each experience on this program has impacted me professionally. I have made multiple connections with healthcare leaders in Austria as well as with my peers who will be healthcare leaders in the future! In general, I feel that I have learned so much about the healthcare system in the US and about countries with universal healthcare. I am able to see benefits and setbacks to both systems. Because of this, I feel I can act as a more educated advocate for changes in healthcare legislation in the US as it affects my future patient’s care and my future healthcare career.
The values and ideals behind Austria’s mission to bring healthcare to everyone even if uninsured or homeless is definitely something I will take with my into my future career. However, there were some innovations I observed abroad that are more concrete and I could work on bringing to Pitt right now.
One really interesting experience in Slovenia was the virtual reality CPR workshop. I think VR could be a great tool for education and I could see it being used in our physiology labs or to simulate anything from first aid situations, to patient assessments, even to performing surgery for medical, physician assistant and nursing students. Another innovation I observed in Austria was robotic therapy animals. These are currently used to calm dementia patients, but they could be used to calm anyone, even college students during finals week!