Abstract:

In addition to the nature of the care itself, the provision of care by non-medical health professionals must also take into account the uniqueness and individuality of the patient or client receiving care. This uniqueness, which may be biologically based or framed by psychological or social dimensions or influenced by spiritual aspects, gives rise to the requirement to provide culturally sensitive care, that is, care that is respectful of the culture and its members, since each culture or subculture may perceive illness, experience pain or dying differently.

One of the specific mobility programmes for non-medical health professionals under the Inter, Erasmus and other programmes is practical placements in professional workplaces abroad. This paper will present the logistics and good practice of providing these placements, but also the partial results observed in terms of expectations, self-awareness and new skills of the learners, with emphasis on communication with and care of patients, self-reflection and evaluation of newly acquired competences. It will also assess the differences in approaches to curricular inclusion of selected non-medical professions across the selected countries. The purpose of the paper is to show, using observed variables and data for the years 2022-2024, the benefits of placement-type mobility not only for the acquisition of new competences of learners, but also for learning about different systems of patient/client care and, on the basis of this, the strengthening of competences in terms of care delivery, which can be described as culturally sensitive.

Among other things, the main motivations of the students for going on a placement, the main challenges they faced, initial expectations, challenging moments, etc. will be discussed.

A comparative perspective will be provided by presenting the results for two groups, namely for learners who leave the Czech Republic for a practical placement abroad and for learners who come to the Czech Republic for a practical placement. For the second group, in addition to the monitored data, the system of care for learners at practical workplaces and their provision across the disciplines of physiotherapy, occupational therapy, general nursing, midwifery, paramedics and laboratory diagnostics in healthcare will be presented.

Keywords:

Mobility, practical placement, non-medical students.