Ciao from the beautiful Pisa, Italy! The quaint Tuscan town has welcomed me wonderfully, despite my broken combination of Italian, Spanish, and English. 

My goals for this week were to get settled in Pisa, understand the scope of the Proximity Care project, and begin to engage with public health officials and the research team. The project is based out of Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, an elite research institution within the University of Pisa post-secondary education system. As such, I will be working with professors, PhD students, and post-doctoral fellows to promote access to care in rural regions in Tuscany, through collaboration with local health ministries for coordination and implementation.

What went well this week was my ability to adapt quickly to a new environment and begin building relationships with the project team. Throughout the week, I've dedicated time to better understanding the Italian healthcare system, particularly its national health service structure, and learned more about regional disparities in healthcare screenings. I gained insight into the scope of work of the mobile care unit employed by the Proximity Care project, including mammograms, HPV, colon cancer screenings, and and primordial prevention initiatives.

One thing that could have been done differently was perhaps gaining more familiarity with Italian prior to my arrival. The research team is very effective at communicating with me in English, but fieldwork in more remote areas will be more of a challenge on that front. I hope to be an avid listener and to pick up as much of the language and culture I as I can.

Working with others this week reinforced the necessity for open-mindedness, adaptability, and asking questions. I've realized that a lot of learning comes simply from listening carefully and being engaged in conversations with subject-matter experts. Additionally, the interdisciplinarity of the team is quite astounding—having public health researchers, engineers, health economists, medical doctors, epidemiologists, and philosophers under one roof is critical for productive, collective advancement, and it is inspiring to witness such synergy.

I look forward to better understanding the functions of the mobile care unit, and better understand where I can contribute most effectively to the project. 

Arrivederci (for now)!