ABSTRACT
Background: There are few opportunities for nurse practitioner (NP) students to develop relationships and exchange ideas with international counterparts. In addition, discovering differences in instructional pedagogy between programs is beneficial for every student.
Purpose: To facilitate an international understanding of health care services and compare curricula of advanced practice programs through an international experience for first year NP students from the United Kingdom and the United States.
Methodological orientation: The study used a qualitative analysis of responses from specified questions provided to both cohorts of students before and after the experience.
Sample: A virtual global exchange between 23 advanced practice students and their professors in the spring of 2018 culminated in a trip by the UK students and faculty to the United States in April of that year.
Conclusions: The UK and US NP students positively evaluated the international encounter and pointed out specific educational activities that were most helpful to their training.
Implications for practice: International experiences offer NP students the opportunity to experience health care delivery in an alternative cultural milieu.