Kira Klein, Engineering Perspectives of the Renaissance and Sustainability: Florence Summer 2023
In a study abroad, it is common for people to get sick – it’s a group of students from a range of backgrounds in a new environment, exchanging with local Italians and other students from other programs, and thus generally lots of germs floating around. While I thought my immune system was pretty good, unfortunately I was one of those who got sick.
I kept being sick with what I thought was just a cold but my chest and cough and throat pain got bad, so eventually I went to the doctor. The first time I went, I got 3 days of antibiotics but after those few days I was not improving so I went back with more severity. He said I most likely had pneumonia! Which sucks. I got 10 days of antibiotics and several other prescriptions, including probiotics, a throat spray, and an X-ray! The X-ray was only for if I felt that I needed it. So, I was able to schedule an appointment for about 5 days later, but by that time I was feeling a lot better and we were near the program end. My schedule was tight, and the hospital was a bit far away and the appointment would take time – so I decided to cancel the X-ray appointment as I was thankfully feeling better.
When I called the X-ray facility, they were so well prepared to handle it- I could reach them by phone easily every time, and they even gave me a code for a taxi voucher so that I could get a free ride to and from the hospital; something that health insurance would probably never cover in the U.S. The prescriptions cost about $60 for the second trip when I filled 10 days of antibiotics, probiotics, and an antiseptic throat spray. I’d say that is a pretty good price, but with our Pitt insurance all of those things should be covered and reimbursed. So, I kept the receipts and have yet to go through that process of reimbursement.
Overall, the process was very streamlined and efficient. There is an English doctor who specializes in study abroad situations that is only a 10-minute walk from CAPA, our study center. The doctor’s office accepted our insurance of course (as they were referred to by our study abroad program), but if you did not have your insurance details at the time of appointment, you would just have to pay $55 and could get it reimbursed later. While that isn’t a zero sum of money to pay out of pocket at first, I believe that doctors in the USA can charge insurance hundreds of dollars and there is almost always a copay, so it was much nicer than that. The doctor’s office had walk-in hours 3-5pm and you could call to make an appointment during the morning. Further, because this doctor was specialized for study abroad (I don’t think most doctors in Italy do this, but I can’t be sure) – the doctor could be reached on WhatsApp by text to schedule an appointment and communicate issues, which was helpful as at a point I got rather sick and needed an appointment promptly. Overall, I wish I didn’t have to go through the process of getting sick, it becoming pneumonia, and needing to treat it and recover while on a study abroad that was only a month long – of which I was sick most of the time – but I did get to interact with a new part of Italian society, and i figured out how to manage pretty well. Thankfully most of my time I was not horribly sick, just needed to carry tissues and water and be prepared. And it was a much better healthcare situation than in the United States!
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