450 ■ III: ROLE FUNCTIONS OF DOCTORAL ADVANCED NURSING PRACTICE
All of the educational sessions and extracurricular activities were designed to
give students a deeper understanding of a different perspective on nursing and health
related ethical, legal, and educational issues that the United Kingdom faces. Students
typically get the course syllabi a couple of weeks before the quarter begins, so they
might complete most of their readings before traveling abroad. What we have clearly
gleaned is that reading about socialized medicine, nursing education, or reflective prac-
tice is not the same as hearing and experiencing the strengths and problems with these
very different systems. The evaluations repeatedly have supported our decision to
immerse our doctoral students, including some who have never been abroad, in this
different world.
■ CASE STUDY I: The DrNP- in- London Program: A Doctoral
Student’s PerspectiveAs I boarded the Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 in the spring of 2008, I was filled
with anticipation. Weeks leading up to our departure, I poured over the itiner-
ary and gathered as much travel information as I could about London and the
surrounding countryside. Despite my best intentions to sleep during the flight,
I diligently read the course material while we flew over the Atlantic. But my
eyes periodically drifted from my articles on ethics and pedagogy sitting on my
tray table to the clouds out of my window, as I daydreamed about the time yet to
be spent 5,700 km across the ocean. With an hour remaining in the flight, some
skeptical thoughts also interrupted my pleasant escape. Although the required
experience abroad was one of the intriguing elements of the Drexel University
DrNP degree, I harbored a small amount of doubt regarding the impact this
experience was going to have in changing how I viewed the world around me.
Our itinerary allowed for two full days of acclimation before the start of the
class. I spent my first day familiarizing with the local surroundings. Nestled
in west London, our accommodations off Gloucester Road in the Borough of
Kensington were equal distance between Hyde Park and Kensington Palace,
and the nearest tube stop and the building housing the classrooms. The neigh-
borhood streets were lined with several foreign embassies and a variety of ec-
lectic restaurants, including several “Gastro Pubs” which I frequented often
during my 2- week stay. The next day, we took a walking tour of Kensington
in the morning and a bus tour of London in the afternoon, which truly gave
me the lay of the land. That evening, as I sat preparing for the following day’s
classes, I stared out my hotel window at the street lights below, once again day-
dreaming about the experiences yet to be had. I awoke the following morning
to the start of a 2- week journey filled with discovery in and out of the class-
room. In addition to the intellectual rigor fostered by the Drexel faculty and
readily embraced by my peers, something I had grown to expect over the last
year in the DrNP program, I was challenged by several guest lecturers special-
izing in the field of nursing ethics. Dr. Wainwright provided a perspective on
research ethics, not entirely unfamiliar, but still unique to the United Kingdom.
Dr. Gallagher lectured on virtue ethics, inviting a dialogue impossible not to(continued)