Katarina Ilic
Life Reporter

The practical nursing program is sending one of its second-year students to Peru at the end of March.

“I really have a passion for nursing and I also have a passion for travelling,” said Courtney Miller, who will stay with a host family in Urumba, Peru.

She hopes her trip will give her a new perspective on nursing.

“I really just wanted to get that international perspective. I don’t like the fact that my nursing knowledge is limited to westernized methods,” Miller said.

She also hopes that this trip will make her a global citizen.

“To be a global citizen to me is to be aware of the fact that there are cultural differences in beliefs and in practices and in values and in stuff like that,” Miller said. “In order to provide holistic nursing or taking care of the client in every sort of way not just the physical, the emotional, the spiritual, all of those aspects that make up health you need to understand what’s important culturally to people.”

While there, Miller plans to run workshops for Peruvians that will cover everything from oral hygiene to general hand washing.

She hopes to learn about the culture of Peru and impart a little bit of wisdom about Canadian culture.

Jason Powell, the practical nursing program co-ordinator, said this is the second such trip that Humber has sponsored.

“This is a wonderful opportunity that we’ve been very fortunate enough to be able to sponsor and support,” Powell said. “Courtney will be our second student that we’ve supported through the Humber college practical nursing program to have been afforded to go ahead and do international nursing in hopes of giving back to the broader sense of the global community.”

The first trip was in 2005 and took a Humber student to Uganda.

Powell said the program is going to try to sponsor some sort of international learning experience every year.

Amanda Perrotta, a second-year practical nursing student and a classmate of Miller’s, is excited and happy for her. “I was so happy with her because she’s the type of person that’s really driven and motivated.”

Upon her return, Miller will hold several presentations at nursing conferences and Humber about her experiences.