Greetings from Uganda

I am a midwifery student spending 3 months in Kampala, Uganda. Here is also other midwifery and nursing students with me, seven students in total. We have accommodation here in Kampala. We have 3 different placements for practical training during our stay in Uganda.

Practical training

My practical training in Uganda takes 3 months. At the moment it is only one month left. My first practical training period was at C-Care IHK which is a private hospital here in Uganda’s capital city. After that I went to a public health center which is located outside the capital city. At the moment I am back in Kampala in a big public hospital. I think it has been good to see different kind of placements, both public and private, and I have learnt a lot. Things are done differently here, but it has been good to see optional ways of doing things especially when resources are low. I also think that it has been good to have other finnish students here, because some days are rough and it is good to have someone to talk with.

Spare time

During the weekends we like to go to see different places and for example visit malls and the center of this city. It has also been nice to hangout at some hotel’s pool on sunny days. We have made couple of trips over the weekends also. I think that the best trip was safari at Murchison falls. We saw many animals in their natural habitat. We had also one vacation week that we spent in Kenya visiting Mombasa and Nairobi.

Compare the working culture in your target country with working in Finland

Working culture here is different compared to Finland. The system doesn’t feel as organized and structured as in Finland. There are also different levels of nurses here in Uganda because education system is different from Finland’s. Different kind of work uniforms represent different levels of nurses. By seeing their uniform, you can know is this colleague a student or a registered nurse for example. I think that in Finland students are being treated mainly well, but here sometimes it’s not that good. In Finland there is only one student per mother, but here there can be even over 20 observing someone when they are giving birth. At this one hospital here in Uganda, I have attended this daily meeting where they go through the statistics about yesterday’s patients and interesting cases. When going through cases, the main goal is to learn from it. I think that this is a good way to improve as a healthcare professional when the case is being dealt properly. This is something that could be done more in Finland too.

 

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