Borne by summer winds to Thailand, mutual learning fosters internationally‑competent nursing professionals. In the summer of 2026, a ten‑member faculty‑and‑student delegation from the School of Nursing, Wenzhou Medical University travelled to Prince of Songkla University (PSU), Thailand to embark on a four‑week cross‑border international study program in nursing. As a core initiative under the deepening inter‑university strategic partnership between the two universities to jointly cultivate nursing talents with global competencies, this study program integrates academic seminars, featured humanistic‑nursing classes, front‑line clinical practicum and cross‑cultural dialogues. It establishes an international platform for mutual exchange and learning in nursing disciplines between China and Thailand, empowering students to broaden their global vision and improve comprehensive professional capabilities。
Arrival at PSU: Launch Cross‑border Meetings and Forge Sound Inter‑university Friendship
On July 31, the Faculty of Nursing of Prince of Songkla University hosted an official welcome and exchange meeting. Professor Luppana Kitrungrote, Dean of the Faculty, together with discipline leaders and the international affairs team, warmly received our study‑tour delegation. They systematically introduced the university’s tiered talent‑training system of “full‑cycle clinical practice plus community‑based outreach”, elaborated on key research directions of its flagship disciplines including geriatric nursing and palliative care, and made comprehensive arrangements covering study, practicum and daily‑life support for Chinese faculty and students. Faculty and students from the School of Nursing, Wenzhou Medical University expressed sincere gratitude for the thoughtful preparation and hospitality extended by the Thai side. Representatives from both sides exchanged university souvenirs to build friendly bonds. After the meeting, Chinese and Thai young students engaged in in‑depth discussions on topics including global nursing industry development, professional talent cultivation and career‑development planning. This interaction quickly brought participants closer and laid a solid communication foundation for the smooth progress of the study tour.
Featured International Courses: Focus on Frontiers of Cross‑cultural Humanistic Nursing
Keeping pace with global trends in nursing development and centering on cross‑cultural humanistic nursing, this study tour offers multiple special thematic nursing courses rooted in Thai local context. Breaking the boundaries of conventional nursing learning, the courses focus on three frontier themes: humanistic care, life education and mind‑body healing.
(1) The Caring Gallery: Perceive the Humanistic Warmth of Nursing from Subtle Details
In the reflective class The Caring Gallery, Thai teachers adopted image‑narrative approaches to guide participants to go beyond superficial nursing practices such as equipment operation and standardized procedures, and explore the in‑depth connotation of care behind physical companionship, emotional perception and empathetic listening. Students worked in groups to create hand‑drawn works and presented their understanding of nursing care. They reached a consensus: high‑quality nursing lies in the integration of professional techniques and humanism, and subtle emotional companionship serves as an irreplaceable core element of care provision.
（2）Palliative Care and Advance Care Planning (ACP): China‑Thailand Dialogue on Views of Life and Death
Palliative care and Advance Care Planning (ACP) constitute the core professional module of this study tour. Drawing on local research outcomes, Thai teachers analysed restrictive factors and practical difficulties for clinical implementation of ACP under Thailand’s traditional folk culture. During the seminar, faculty from our school interpreted the cultural foundation and local development pathways of domestic hospice care based on traditional Chinese Confucian‑Taoist philosophies of life and death. The collision and complementarity of two‑way Chinese‑Thailand cultural perspectives provided all students with international references for their future practice of multicultural nursing and localized end‑of‑life care.
(3) Indigenous Thai SKT Mindfulness Meditation: Distinctive Thai Mind‑body Integrated Nursing Practice
SKT Meditation is an indigenous Thai mindfulness‑healing system and a featured intervention modality in local humanistic nursing. It can relieve occupational burnout caused by heavy clinical workload among medical staff, and also function as a non‑pharmacological therapy to ease patients’ psychological stress. Under the guidance of professional Thai instructors, all participants completed full meditation exercises and learned the healing logic of emotion acceptance and mind‑body awareness. The course broadened students’ understanding of nursing and demonstrated the unique value of psychological intervention in modern clinical nursing.
In‑depth Clinical Practice: Benchmark against Local Thai Nursing System
Prioritizing growth empowered by hands‑on practice, this study tour builds an integrated practical learning system of “campus visit‑community observation‑hospital practicum”. The delegation visited campus training facilities and the Brain Betterment Center for the Elderly Health Promotion and Rehabilitation. They observed on‑site the standardized operation modes of Thai cognitive intervention for the elderly and community health‑care services, and took part in Tai‑chi health‑care interactive experience. Amid the integration of Chinese and Western health‑care cultures, participants gained direct insights into the localized characteristics of Thai nursing — “integrated mind‑body care empowered by humanism”, which laid a solid cognitive foundation for subsequent hospital‑based clinical practicum.
Leveraging high‑quality collaborative resources, members of the study‑tour group were divided into subgroups to visit PSU Affiliated Hospital and Hat Yai Regional Public Hospital. They participated in full‑time immersive clinical observation in key wards including MICU, medical and surgical departments. Participants benchmarked against standardized Thai clinical nursing models, and experienced the local humanistic nursing feature of integrating spiritual care into daily management for patients with chronic diseases. In the MICU, students observed full‑cycle care for critically‑ill patients up‑close. They systematically learned hands‑on skills including ventilator and monitor parameter interpretation as well as comprehensive assessment of critically‑ill patients, and gained profound understanding of the comprehensive demands for professional theories, clinical thinking and psychological quality in critical‑care nursing. The refined ward management, theory‑practice integrated teaching model, strict patient‑privacy protection mechanism, as well as regular learning activities including case review and mind‑map sorting among nursing students at Hat Yai Hospital offered valuable references for Chinese students. Towards the end of the practicum, Chinese and Thai faculty and students jointly held Balint group sessions. Through empathetic sharing, role‑taking and mutual psychological debriefing, the activities effectively relieved students’ psychological pressure brought by exposure to complex clinical scenarios and end‑of‑life care, built a cross‑border psychological‑support platform for young nursing practitioners, and realized dual empowerment for professional development and mental well‑being.
Phase Summary: United across Mountains and Seas, Jointly Explore New Global Horizons for Nursing
Half of the study‑tour journey has been completed. From campus visits, cutting‑edge thematic classes and front‑line clinical practicum to cross‑border youth exchanges, a comprehensive channel for mutual learning between Chinese and Thai nursing disciplines has been constructed. Through phased immersive learning, students from our school stepped out of the single domestic nursing perspective and drew extensively on cutting‑edge practical models from Southeast Asia, including health‑promotion nursing, localized palliative care and mindfulness‑based mind‑body intervention. Their international professional vision has been significantly enhanced. Notably, this marks the first time that the School has dispatched core clinical teaching faculty from its affiliated hospitals as group leaders, which serves as a vivid demonstration of the school’s philosophy of deepening hospital‑school integration and empowering talent cultivation through clinical practice.
The smooth implementation of this study tour benefits from the solid cooperative foundation between the two universities. Since the initial student exchange program launched in 2025, collaboration between the two faculties has kept improving. Via regular faculty‑student exchange visits, academic seminars and co‑hosted international nursing conferences, the cooperation has evolved from short‑term personnel exchanges into standardized, institutionalized in‑depth collaboration covering academic co‑construction, scientific research cooperation, resource sharing and joint talent cultivation. Moving forward, the School of Nursing, Wenzhou Medical University will continue to build upon the China‑Thailand higher‑education cooperation platform to advance all‑round strategic partnership with Prince of Songkla University. Priority work will include joint curriculum development, academic workshops, collaborative research and faculty‑student exchange. The school will further advance hospital‑school integration and international talent‑training models, and jointly cultivate more new‑era nursing professionals equipped with solid expertise and global vision, continuously injecting youth vitality into China‑Thailand health exchanges.
