A group of thirty Italian medical students visited Edgware
Community Hospital last week to see what goes on in a specialist
NHS walk-in centre.
The students, who are all in the latter stages of their medical
training at the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona,
Italy, were given a guided tour by walk-in centre manager, Ping
Bowman as well as a Q&A session with lead nurse consultant,
Elaine Cockram, who said:
"It's great for us to have clinicians from overseas coming to
see and learn from the way we run things at our walk-in centre in
Edgware. It was clear from their questions and comments that the
NHS is a respected institution around the world and the idea of a
walk-in centre that is run by specialist nurses was a new one to
them".
The students were accompanied by nursing coordinator Dr Cucchi,
nursing tutor Dr Mercuri and Professor Mauro Barchiesi who
said:
"We wanted to see how healthcare is provided and managed in the
community as we don't have walk-in centres in Italy. We were
especially interested in how nurses can progress their careers as
practitioners and as prescribers in the same way a doctor can, as
this is not the case in Italy but is the main learning point for us
to take away".
