ING Organization: Let’s Be Closer!

The UCSF School of Nursing now has a total of 44 international nursing students from 18 countries. The cultural diversity has been enriched within the school but the call for enhancing cultural awareness and life adaptation skills has been deemed a crucial strategy for most students from outside the U.S to incorporate into a new academic and social life.

International Nursing Group at UCSF (ING), a student organization within the School of Nursing, has focused on understanding what extra help can be provided to enhance the dialogue between local and international nursing students. We all sit in the same classroom but are we aware of the special needs of international students, and mostly, how can we engage them into the united school family life?

Conversational partnership is an idea based on some new international students’ feedback; namely that they wish to make friends with one student outside their own culture ground. Our International Students want a person they can turn to and ask about ‘Halloween culture,’ a person who can help them with ‘American English Pronunciation’ and a friend they can call for ‘Cuppa’ after class.

The first dinner for the partnership between international student and local students was held recently, and the event drew over twenty-two students for the theme of ‘Let’s be closer.’ It was a great opportunity for most international students to actually sit next to a local student, not for classes, but for sharing thoughts and building friendships. The dinner also gave local nursing students a chance to bring rapport not to a client from clinic, but a real student live in the same building with you.

In a globalized world, ‘cultural sensitivity’ is not just about learning a new culture from textbook, magazine and TV, it is what you found related to your daily life. The ING is looking for more activities in the following year to enhance the intercultural communications in nursing professionals.

If interested, contact:
Annie Palmer (NP program) Annie.palmer@ucsfmedctr.org
Katherine Pope (MEPN program) Katherine.pope@ucsf.edu
Chelsea Landolin (MEPN program) Chelsea.Landolin@ucsf.edu
Lin Zhao (PhD program) Lin.Zhao@ucsf.edu

ING website:
http://nurseweb.ucsf.edu/public/ing/contact