SU Hosts Nursing, Paramedic Students from Scotland

By SU Public Relations

SALISBURY, MD---Salisbury University’s College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) continues to expand the global perspective in its highly ranked nursing program.

The CHHS recently hosted a group of nursing and paramedic students from the University of Stirling, Scotland, for a week-long residency, allowing them to learn about health care in the U.S. The University of Stirling has been a long-time study abroad partner with SU.

The academic program was centered at SU’s Richard A. Henson Medical Simulation Center, involving a collaboration of multiple faculty from the School of Nursing. Stirling students engaged in simulation training alongside SU nursing students and visited clinical providers in Salisbury.

Ellie Kettrick is completing her nursing degree at Stirling and hopes to be a fully licensed nurse in Scotland by the end of this year.

“The quality of the simulations was excellent,” she said of her SU experience. “We learned so much by working with the fabulous standardized patients.”

Standardized patients are actors who are trained to portray a variety of medical encounters with students preparing for careers in the health professions. The students from Scotland engaged in simulations involving family conflict in the emergency room and a medical crisis with a homeless patient showing signs of mental illness.

In addition, the Stirling students took a tour of TidalHealth Peninsula Regional Medical Center led by Dr. Debra Webster, SU School of Nursing director. They also visited Salisbury Fire Department Station 1, meeting with first responders and touring the U.S. versions of the ambulances the paramedic students are training on in Scotland.

Staff at both facilities engaged with the visiting students, with all learning about the differences and similarities in how medicine is practiced in Scotland and in the U.S.

“The School of Nursing is so proud of our partnerships with our local health care partners,” said Webster. “It was a real pleasure to be able to share this global exchange with our community partners.”

The students from Scotland learned about more than just medicine during their residency. They also toured Washington, D.C.; visited the Ocean City boardwalk and engaged with SU students on campus.

John Wells, an information systems major at Salisbury, was hanging out with friends in The Square at SU when he met a few of the students from Stirling. Just a few months prior, he spent the winter term semester studying international accounting at the SU in Scotland Global Campus, hosted at the University of Stirling.

“It was so fun to meet Scottish people here in Salisbury after studying abroad in Scotland,” he said.

Katherine Crawford, a paramedic student from the University of Stirling who was scheduled to begin her clinical internship on an ambulance upon returning to Scotland, met SU communication major Madeline Rathman in front of Holloway Hall. Rathman recently had studied abroad in Edinburgh, Scotland.

“Everyone was so welcoming,” said Crawford. “Maddy and her friend, Emily, welcomed us back to their apartment at University Orchard so we could see an American college student’s apartment, and we met their cats.”

Reid Fraccaroli is a senior Earth science major who never got the chance to study abroad.  He got to know the visiting students in his role as a resident assistant for SU’s Dogwood Village residence complex, where the Stirling students were staying.

“It was so enlightening,” he said. “Learning about different cultures is so interesting to me.”

SU senior nursing major Robert Waller spent quite a bit of time with the visiting students at the Henson Medical Simulation Center and in social spaces outside the classroom.

“It was an absolute pleasure getting to know the Scottish students,” he said. “I honestly think everyone in the nursing program was just as excited to have them there and sharing their culture as they were to visit.”

CHHS and School of Nursing faculty and administrators have worked hard to enhance global learning for their students in recent years. During academic year 2022-23, they hosted a Fulbright Scholar-in-Residence from SU’s partner university in Ghana, the University of Cape Coast.  During winter term 2024, Dr. Tina Reid of the School of Nursing taught a course with Salisbury students at SU’s university partner, the Kaimosi Friends University, in Kaimosi, Kenya.

By the end of this year, all the students from the University of Stirling who learned about American health care at SU hope to have graduated and be actively working in their fields. However, the global exchange will not stop with them.

More SU students are scheduled to leave in early June to study abroad at the University of Stirling this summer. SU also is preparing to return to the UK with a large group of students at the SU in Scotland Global Campus, hosted by the University of Stirling, in January 2025.

For more information about SU’s study abroad initiatives, visit the Janet Dudley-Eshbach Center for International Education webpage.

Learn more about SU and opportunities to Make Tomorrow Yours at the SU website.