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Getting Healthy

By kathleenmccarthy1

At NUIG, you spend a lot of time trying to get away from the other American students. With such a high international student population and a heavy presence of American study abroad programs on campus, the opportunity to be surrounded by only Irish students even for a short while does not come around often. This is why I believed that there would be a considerable number of American students in the sociology seminar that I registered for. However, when the class, entitled: Contemporary Irish Health Care Policy in a Comparative Context, began, I discovered that apart from a German student who was also taking it, everyone else in the class was Irish.

My health care policy seminar is the only class in which there is not a large population of visiting students. In fact, with 13 students in total, it is the only one that doesn’t take place in a large lecture hall. This means that the professor will actually learn our names and get to know us as individuals instead of just talking at us for the entire lecture like the professors in Ireland typically do. Obviously, since it is still relatively early on in the semester, the professor does not know all of the students’ names yet. He has, however, known one student’s name from the first day of class and that student is me. The reason for this is that, as the only American in the class, I am the go-to girl for questions about free market health care policy.

Even at GW, it is unusual for a professor to address me directly and know my name during the first lecture. This is why it took me back when, during our first class, the professor looked right at, called me by my name and asked me about public health care options in the US. Getting questions like this one would have been intimidated to get even back at GW, but in the states it would only be out of fear of embarrassment or concern over having it reflect poorly on my grades. In Ireland, my answers to these questions will shape my classmates’ understanding of American health care policy and, subsequently, their understanding of global health care policy. I feel as though I have essentially become a guest lecturer in my sociology class, completely by accident.

With my health care policy class meeting on Thursday mornings, my Wednesday nights have essentially turned into a briefing session on new developments in American health care policy. This might seem excessive and unnecessary but anyone who has been on Twitter lately can attest to the fact that this topic is not one that you want to ignore for a few days if you have any intention of discussing it with someone. I basically need to prepare for a class presentation on American health care policy every week, but I’m never really sure of the aspect of health care policy that I will be presenting on. Fortunately, both the professor and the other students in the class are incredibly warm and understanding and seem pleased that there is an American in the class to contribute to the discussion. Even though I’m sure they would be really nice about it if I had nothing to say, I’m going to be asked to contribute whether I like it or not. So, I might as well give 110%.