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PMU Day 1

Wednesday was our first day on campus at PMU. We started our day off with Mrs. Holzer as she oriented us to our time here in Austria. She also gave us a welcome presentation about PMU and nursing programs in Austria. PMU recently began operating on a 2 in 1 model in which students work towards a BSN degree while also receiving vocational training. This BSN-RN program is 7 semesters long and the students earn 210 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) credits. PMU was only founded in 2002 and the institute of nursing has only existed since 2007. They currently offer programs for online RN to BSN degrees and Masters degrees; however, they are still in the process of creating a DNP program. She continued to tell us more about the school, all of the satellite clinical locations they have, and about nursing in Austria. We had an interesting discussion about mental health care, discussing it as more stigmatized in the U.S. and the effect that lack of funding has on this sector of health care and its outcomes. We discussed how mental health facilities in Austria offer more therapeutic environments and activities such as freedom to be outdoors, gardening, doing odd jobs, and being more integrated with the community surroundings. Furthermore, we discussed a little bit about the focus on research that nursing in Austria is working towards and especially at PMU. As of right now, nursing based on EBP (evidenced-based practice) is not nearly as accessible as in the U.S. and it is not quite as much of a focus in the nursing program but this is currently changing. After getting oriented to the school and the program, we went with Mrs. Holzer to a lecture presentation she was giving to the new incoming students on clinical satellite locations. Students have the opportunity to go to one of 7 clinics in hospitals to work an internship before completing the program. These different clinics have a variety of different specialties. The one we will be traveling to next week is in Linz, Austria and it has a focus on psychiatric and geriatric nursing. After listening this lecture (Auf Deutsch!) we gave a presentation of our own to the students about the US healthcare system and ODU’s nursing program.

We then met up with Frau Kapfer, the fundraising coordinator for PMU who escorted us to meet Herr Professor Hartl who works as the director of the Ecomedicine department. He walked and talked us through a lot of the research that has gone on and currently is going on in this department. They have done a lot of research concerning alternative treatments to asthma, since this is a major public health issue in Austria. He showed us one study in which they attempted to aerosolize vapor from a local waterfall to use as an aerosol treatment spray for children with asthma. They studied this by having a children's camp located near the waterfall and studied the onset of asthma attacks. He and his team of researchers found their asthma attacks greatly decreased! He also showed us different tools they can use as scientists to study the particles found in different materials that can trigger allergic reaction. One study we found very interesting was a research study PMU did on the effect of nature on nursing burnout rates. They found that hiking each day out in nature has a positive effect on reducing rates of nursing burnout. He also showed us one computerized model that they are currently working on to be a standardized assessment scale to measure quality of life. They were trying to expand the model using a cross-cultural framework in order to make it applicable to developing countries as well.

Furthermore, after taking a lunch break, we reconvened and attended two private lectures (both in English!) with nurse researchers who were so kind to sit down with us as either explain what research they are currently working on or what research they have completed and what were the results. The first lecture was with Paulina Wosko who is part of a palliative care research team. She is currently working on a professorship with both medical and nursing professionals as a sort of interdisciplinary team. This team is comprised of five core areas of study. The first team is conducting a systemic review on palliative care, looking for who needs palliative care, who wants it, and who actually gets it. The second team is taking the approach of looking at people with neurological diseases and who do they access palliative care. The third is looking at how to access the homeless population to provide palliative care to those who want or need it. The fourth team is very focused on interdisciplinary meetings because this is so essential to palliative care and its nature. Finally, her team is looking at the role of non-kin carers in palliative care of older adults living alone. Her team is in the process of conducting qualitative studies with both the caregivers and also trying to access the patient population. This study is a longitudinal study but there are many barriers to making this feasible and accessing this population. She is passionate about this research because she and her colleagues believe that palliative care needs to be present in the dying process much before it ever usually is.

Finally, we wrapped up our day listening to another private lecture on some research that has already been completed here at PMU. Maria Magdelena Schreier was a part of a research team, OSiA (Stands for Optimiertes Schmerzmanagement in Altenpflegeheimen. Optimized Pain Management in Long-term care) that conducted a qualitative study on optimized pain management in long-term care. Their driving questions were centered around pain and nursing homes and what there is to be done about it. This team also wanted to conduct research that would lay the foundation for assessing pain in the cognitively impaired. Their approach centered on questioning whether pain could be managed simply through the use of a systemic pain assessment. Data collection tools included using the “Up & Go Model” and the Mini-Mental Status Exam (MMSE). Data was collected in nursing homes throughout Austria through online surveys and group interviews. One of their most significant findings from the study was that it is important and helpful in providing adequate pain management to ask cognitively impaired people about their pain situation. They also found that 70% of nursing home residents believe that pain is simply associated and normal with old age. They also found that 42% have concealed pain that they do not tell anyone about. This is due to various reasons such as not wanting to be a burden, lack of trust, they believe that their pain is imagined, believe they have just recently received a pain medication, and concern about side effects. According to these results and other findings, the research team developed a series of best practices: 1) improve pain treatment in cooperation with general practitioners, 2) offer a larger variety of non-drug pain treatments (i.e. aromatherapy, ice, massage), 3) promote more transparency on all levels, 4) establish better cooperation with general practitioners and other professionals (i.e. pharmacists). As you can probably tell, we learned A LOT on Wednesday! Still trying to process it all, but they have a lot of good research going on here at PMU and are making good progress in the medical field.


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