Rutgers School of Nursing–Camden Announces Partnership with Hungary’s Oldest Medical School
CAMDEN — The Rutgers School of Nursing–Camden is expanding its global reach through a new collaboration with Semmelweis University in Budapest, Hungary, that will allow the two higher education institutions to collaborate on academics, research, and scholarship programs.
Representatives from the two universities, including Rutgers University–Camden Chancellor Phoebe Haddon and Rutgers School of Nursing–Camden Dean Joanne Robinson, signed a Memorandum of Understanding in September at Semmelweis University— Hungary’s oldest medical school and one of Europe’s leading centers of medicine and health sciences — that sets up the framework for the collaboration.
“This partnership is an opportunity for us to expand our global outreach,” Robinson says. “The Rutgers School of Nursing–Camden is proud to partner with Semmelweis University and by working together, our two institutions will expand opportunities for our students and faculty to advance nursing scholarship and research.”
"It will provide Rutgers–Camden nursing students with an extraordinary opportunity to understand the global nature of health care today,” says Marie O’Toole, senior associate dean of academic and faculty affairs and professor at the Rutgers School of Nursing–Camden. “Global health is an essential component of nursing education and because we live in a global society, our students must learn to work together to anticipate changes in the healthcare system and come up with the best solutions for care.”
The first step in the collaboration will be a faculty and student exchange program that will begin during the fall 2016 semester, as well as the establishment of joint research activities. O’Toole says the work will primarily focus on emergency care, infection control, and health care policies in the European Union.
“The faculty and students at Semmelweis University have established themselves as outstanding researchers and educators in nursing and health science and this partnership is a natural fit,” O’Toole says.
O’Toole says Rutgers–Camden students will have an opportunity to study healthcare policies and practices in another country while learning from and teaching their Semmelweis peers how to provide better care in hospitals.
The collaboration is being funded by an Erasmus+ grant awarded to Semmelweis University from the European Commission on Higher Education for the exchange of faculty and students.
“We want to be able to combine our resources to really make an impact on the education of healthcare providers,” O’Toole says.
The Rutgers School of Nursing–Camden offers baccalaureate programs for traditional, accelerated, and RN students; professional certificates in school nursing and wound/ostomy/continence nursing; and a doctor of nursing practice program with tracks in adult/gerontology nursing and nursing of families that prepare students for clinical practice as nurse practitioners in these specialties.