An international internship on social development led by Canadian nursing students: empowering learning

Abstract

Background: A Canadian nursing student-led knowledge dissemination project on health promotion for social development was implemented with local professionals and communities in Brazil.

Objectives: (a) to identify how student-interns contrasted Canadian and Brazilian cultural and social realities within a primary healthcare context from a social development perspective; (b) to examine how philosophical underpinnings, including social critical theory and notions of social justice, guided student-interns in acknowledging inequalities in primary healthcare in Brazil; and (c) to participate in the debate on the contribution of Canadian nursing students to the global movement for social development.

Design and setting: A qualitative appraisal of short-term outcomes of an international internship in the cities of Birigui & Araçatuba (São Paulo-Brazil).

Participants: Four Canadian fourth-year undergraduate nursing students enrolled in a metropolitan university program.

Methods: Recruitment was through an email invitation to the student-interns, who accepted, and signed informed consent forms. Their participation was unpaid and voluntary. One-time individual interviews were conducted at the end of their internships. Transcriptions of the audio-recorded interviews were coded using the qualitative software program ATLAS ti 6.0. The findings were analyzed using thematic analysis.

Results: Student-interns' learning unfolded from making associations among concepts, new ideas, and their previous experiences, leading to a personal transformation through which they established new conceptual and personal connections. The two main themes revealed by the thematic analysis were dichotomizing realities, that is, acknowledging the existence of "two sides of each situation," and discovering an unexpected reciprocity between global and urban health. Furthermore, the student-interns achieved personal and professional empowerment.

Conclusions: The knowledge gained from the international experience helped the student-interns learn how to collaborate with Brazilian society's sectors to improve the social conditions of a "marginalized population". Student-interns became aware of their inner power to promote change by making invisible inequity visible in their own terms.

Keywords: Brazil; Canada; International internship; Social development; Undergraduate nursing students.