How Nursing Faculty Build Safe Student Service Trips Abroad

Send us Fan Mail (https://www.buzzsprout.com/2534345/fa...) You don’t need a huge budget, months off work, or fluency in another language to do meaningful global health work, but you do need a plan. We sit down with Susan, a University of Maine nursing faculty member who has led multiple international service learning trips, to talk about what actually makes short-term service abroad safe, ethical, and deeply educational for nursing students. From Belize to Tanzania to Colombia, she shares what changes country to country and what stays constant: the power of structure, reflection, and showing up with humility. We also go beyond travel and get real about the emotional core of nursing. Susan explains why she’s passionate about aging and end-of-life care, how students respond to an awareness-based course built around journaling, and why educators have to be mindful of grief, triggers, and the realities students may be facing during a semester. That same reflective muscle becomes essential overseas, where students see scarcity, resilience, and joy in places that challenge their assumptions about comfort and happiness. Then we dig into the behind-the-scenes work that listeners rarely hear: vetting partners, working with a university travel office, navigating risk management and travel advisories, keeping scope of practice clear, and managing a full schedule so students learn more and wander less. We also talk about real outcomes, like students gaining confidence presenting patient cases to physicians and the surprisingly life-changing impact of simple tools like reading glasses. If you’ve been curious about international service learning, nursing study abroad, experiential education, and global health training that translates back home, this conversation will give you a clear picture of what it takes and why it’s worth it. Subscribe, share this with a colleague or student, and leave a review with the one place you’d want to serve next. I also want to thank our listeners for joining us as it is our goal to "share the voices of international service" with you!  As a 50+ year nurse that has worked in quite a variety of clinical roles in our healthcare system, taught healthcare courses for the past 20 years at the university level, and has traveled extensively with students on international service-learning trips, I can easily attest to the fact that it is the hands-on experiential experiences that are most meaningful in life! I hope that by hearing these voices you too can become involved in service, whether it be locally, nationally, or internatioally.  Feel free to check out our website at www.internationalservicelearning.org, follow us on Instagram @islmedical, or send me an email at                                      DrH@internationalservicelearning.org (mailto:DrH@islonline.org) if you wasnt to learn more about international opportunities for yourself, your school, your church, or any other cohort!