Internationalization: New Challenges for the development of science in nursing and health care

If we consider that all health-disease process, its actors and determinants, are manifested by the social structures and dynamics, it is not strange to think that this process is marked by globalization prevailing in the contemporary world. Globalization is a complex and multifactorial concept involving global collective participation(¹).

The creation of a global community has generated the humanity that requires advances in international relationships and global competences(²-³) . Being an irreversible phenomenon of global reaches, it has impacted the way of providing health care, education and research in nursing(⁴-⁵). At the present, the nurses must be prepared to provide culturally competent care, in which the common element is a philosophy focused on seeking the welfare of individuals, families or assisted communities, in a context in which languages or cultures may be different and even with conflicting values.

The need for common languages, respect for differences and appreciation of social skills as essential techniques for the care, require of human resources training in which the internationalization, regarding their valuation and experience, will be achieved through the nursing education curriculum. Nowadays, most of the Universities consider as a fundamental piece, the internationalization of their students(²); the relevancy is not just to be considered as a part of the objectives of a strategic plan or speech, but to take into account the economic and language limitations that Portuguese and Spanish speaking countries have for learning the Anglo-Saxon tendencies which have developed the nursing scientific literature in the last years. In addition, should be taken into account the limited budgets of the countries from South and Central America, which hinder the ability to educate the nursing human resource with a global perspective; that is why it becomes relevant search internationalization strategies that do not necessarily require departure of nurses from their home countries. Instead, look for strategies that trigger a local assessment and awareness of different realities, through the understanding of globalization as the main modeler agent of health-disease process, their care and nursing research.

A relevant aspect to be considered in nurse training in order to provide care of quality is a real wish to grow,which is just obtained if there is consciousness of the relevance of internationalization and their needs. In the research context, today the challenge is to survive the demands of funding agencies. Nursing research is now led by Anglo-Saxon countries and Brazil, bringing a constraint language for Spanish-speaking countries. A strategy that has proved success, despite the challenge of languages, has been the constitution of interdisciplinary group with different nationalities, which value the culture differences. Each member is assigned a leadership role in different areas according to requirements of financial agencies.

The internationalization implies to know about other realities of countries and be part of a global community, where respect and solidarity seem to be the fundamental values which allow the generation of good questions, financial support for research and, finally, with this knowledge generate an effective and qualified development of care in health and nursing science.

This is not easy, considering the local contexts in South America, our histories and idiosyncrasies. It is important to make good questions, with answers that potentially explain or solve health situations considering the globalization as the axis of research and development in health and nursing. The gap today is the real achievement of globalization on human resource training, valuation and understanding in a change of perspective and philosophy. Internationalization, by itself, creates new challenges, but their achievement provides humanized care delivery and effective development and quality of health care science and nursing.

References

• ¹
  Sassen S. Una sociología de la globalización. Anal Polit. 2007;26(61):3-27.
• ²
  Dewey P, Duff S. Reason before passion: faculty views on internationalization in higher education. Higher Educ. 2009;58(4):491-504.
• ³
  Fernández Lopez S, Ruzo Sanmartí n E. Los procesos de Internacionalización y globalización en la educación superior: un análisis de los países OCDE. Rev Educ. 2004;(335):385-413.
• ⁴
  Keighley T. Globalizati on: grasping the concept within the context of nursing. Int Nurs Rev. 2013;60(1):86-7.
• ⁵
  Quintana MO, Paravic T. Internacionalización de la educación en enfermería y sus desafí os. Enferm Global [Internet].2011 [citado 2013 ago.27];10(24). Disponible en: htt p://scielo.isciii.es/pdf/eg/v10n24/reflexiones1.pdf.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Oct 2013