Il tutor di tirocinio per le professioni sanitarie: un progetto di formazione continua nell’Azienda Usl della Romagna

Abstract

Background. The Erasmus program of students’ mobility is one of the most successful initiatives of the European Union. Despite the great number of general studies on students’ perception about the program and its result, specific studies about medical students are scarce.
Materials and methods. Twelve students after their Erasmus stay wrote a narrative report about their experience, according to a suggested sequence of topics derived from theoretical models of culture, adaptation to diversity and inter-cultural competence. The textual data were analyzed according to the Giorgi’s phenomenological method.
Results. Four themes emerged: the Erasmus stay as an initiation journey, an experience of personal transformation and acquisition of independence; a lived experience of professional development when faced with different organizational settings of healthcare provision and professional role models; the emotions of adaptation, both positive and negative, when faced with diversity; a dynamic dialectic between local and global dimension, home and the world, national and trans-national identity. While the themes of cultural and personal development were present in other studies, the idea of professional development was an original tract of this research.
Conclusions. These results have educational implications. An Erasmus stay is always a strong lived experience, that should be prepared and assisted with reflective tools like diaries or a guide to narrative. After their return, students should be given the opportunity to share with their colleagues their experience during formal learning activities, in order to develop a socially built meaning for their stay.