May 14th - May 29th, Dr. Julia Ball and Dr. Deb McQuilkin took 13 USC CON students abroad for the course "Special Topics in International Nursing in Munich and Nuremberg, Germany."

From the initial base in Starnberg, the group went on sight-seeing trips which included Munich; Salzburg, Austria; and the famous "fairy tale" castles of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. As part of the class/clinical agenda to study healthcare and ethics they spent a day at the Nazi Concentration Camp in Dachau which is now a memorial site to the hundreds of thousands of people who died there, many in medical experiments.

At the School of Nursing in the Lutheran University of Applied Sciences Nuremberg, they participated in a lecture and discussion on ethics followed by a talk on history at the site of the Nuremburg trials held post WW II. The Nuremberg Trials marked the beginning of the now internationally accepted statements of human rights and principles of healthcare ethics.

They toured Klinikum Nord, a pediatric hospital and a long term care facility run by the Lutheran Deaconesses, during which they interacted with older adult residents who were able to remember their "School-girl English". Florence Nightingale did her initial nurse training with the same order of Deaconesses at Kaiserswerth, also in Germany. Additionally, they spent a lot of their clinical and free time over multiple days with the German nursing students. Their time at the Klinikum (North Hospital Nuremberg) included multiple lectures on the German healthcare system and the administration of the community owned hospital. They visited many cities on day trips, including Starnberg, Oberammergau, Bamberg, Wurtsburg and Stuttgart.

Congratulations to everyone involved who made this a inaugural international study a great success!