This year, Dr. Christopher Woolverton from the College of Public Health and Dr. Pam Stephenson from the College of Nursing, accompanied 20 students to the Florence Health Institute for a month-long study abroad experience. Students took a public health microbiology course, “Plagues that Shaped the World” and a nursing course, “Comparative Healthcare Systems” that compared Italian and U.S. healthcare models. There were eight field trips including the vaccine institute, public and private hospitals and the anatomical wax museum. Participants traveled to both Florence and Sienna, Italy. /globaleducation/florencehealth2019.
Dr. Woolverton also spent part of his summer in Indonesia providing three weeks of biosafety, biosecurity and biorisk management training to physicians, nurses and laboratory staff at three Indonesian hospitals. Woolverton was part of a team organized by the Washington, DC-based, Health Security Partners, supporting the Indonesian Surgeon General’s initiative of a five-year collaboration with the United States to improve Indonesia’s ability to prevent, detect and respond to natural or intentional disease outbreaks. The team trained on-site at the Dr. Soebroto Hospital in Jakarta, the Dr. Hardjolukito Hospital in Jogjakartaand the Dr. Ramelan Hospital in Surabaya during July and August 2019. Risk-based safety, security and biorisk management were taught using case study analyses and tabletop exercises. These were combined with hands-on training teaching risk-based use of personal protective equipment, hand hygiene and spill containment. Pre and post-training assessments demonstrated marked increases in learning of the content.