One of the first students of the Degree Course in Nursing Sciences UCBM is in New York with the humanitarian organization
28 December 2016 - «Dear Professors, how are you? I hope you remember me, I have never forgotten you during all these years. It's been almost 20 since I graduated, and more than five since the last time I came to say goodbye." Thus begins the email that the professor found in her inbox Maria Grazia De Marinis, Delegate of the Degree Course in Nursing UCBM, some weeks ago. She was sent from New York by Dr. Barbara Saitta, an early nursing student in the UCBM, since four years Vaccination, Epidemic and Infection Control Advisor for Doctors Without Borders. Right in the New York office of this humanitarian organization Barbara, since 2015, she has been dealing in particular with advocacy, to ensure access to vaccines and essential medicines for all.
“The other day I was talking to some friends about my studies as a nurse and the beautiful memories of the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, of you and my beautiful classmates came to mind. How many things have happened since then, all surprising». After an initial professional experience in the first office of UCBM, then still located in via Longoni, completed in 1997, Barbara studied and worked both in London and in Norway. In 2004 she was then accepted for a course at Boston University, where she attended a Masters in Public Health. Strengthened by this further training background, she was therefore hired by Doctors Without Borders, «the organization for which I have always wanted to work. Since 2009 I do the job I've always dreamed of doing and for which I believe I was born».
«During these last six years with MSF - continues Barbara in the email - I have seen, experienced and done things that I would never have imagined, but only dreamed of. I have worked and visited many countries (Colombia, Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, Chad, South Sudan, Iraq, Ethiopia, Jordan, Turkey...), learned threeingue, saw breathtaking landscapes, met fantastic workmates, and witnessed the incredible ability of human beings to survive no matter what."
«I'm telling you all this - concludes the email - because I want you to know that in these years all your teaching, passion and pride for the nursing they never left me. One of the greatest satisfactions I have today is telling people about the work I do, being asked "so are you a doctor?" and to see their surprised faces when I proudly answer: "No, I'm a nurse!"».