I am still in Italy while writing the post. I completed 6 weeks in a hospital at Rovigo in the respiratory intensive care unit. The unit consists of 4 rooms with 8 patient placements and 13 nurses working in the unit. The patients in the unit have acute or chronic lung diseases. For the last 2 weeks I will be in the operating room and Im really excited for that. 
My practical training has been a really good experience and I´ve had a great opporniturnity to improve my skills as a nurse. From what I first expected I have been able to do all the things that the nurses do in the unit including taking blood samples, dispensing medications, giving injections, diluting and administering intravenous medications and measuring vital signs. New things for me in the unit were most of the different supplemental oxygen equipment and also the different lung diseases. In the six weeks I have learned how to use the equipment and my supervising nurse has offered me different literature of the equipment and the diseases.
Reflecting the differences between working in Finland compared to Italy the differences were not very big. One of the differences is the food and brake culture, in Italy the nurses dont usually eat lunch or dinner, just a little snack compared to Finland were the lunch break is a important part of the shift and everyone eats together usually. But I always had the chance to keep my breaks and eat my food, even if the other nurses didnt. In Finland hand hygiene is a bit more strict from what I have seen, nurses dont have acrylic nails or jewellery, in the unit this was quite common in nurses. All the nurses and doctors were really welcoming and helpful in the unit as In Finland in some units I have worked in the doctors for example have not introduced themselves to students.
When I got more used to the unit, working felt very natural and pretty much the same as in Finland, but the only problem was the language barrier. I couldnt communicate with the patients except the greetings and some words I learned in Italian and it made the situations sometimes a bit difficult, gladly my supervising nurse always explained that I am an exchange student from Finland. Also the raports from the shifts were given in Italian and I couldnt understand them. I used google translate for the documents that were written in Italian and it was convenient.
In my spare time I was able to visit Venice and Rome. Both cities were really beautiful. In Venice we just stayed for the day and In Rome we were for a few nights. One of the best things in Italy has been the beautiful old buildings and churches, the people and of course the food. In my spare time I have explored also a lot the city of Padova and there is always something new to find. I will also have the opporniturnity to meet other third year nursing students next week in a party planned for the end of this semester. I feel very lycky that I was able to have this experience and all the great memories left from the trip.
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