Another Day in the Life of Public health Nurse FEATURING Kristi Yamaguchi

(Maryam Audu and Kristi Yamaguchi)

One of Sandi Hurley’s (Shaker Public Health Department Nurse) friend, Kevin from Sinofi, sent us an invitation last week. This invitation was to a conference about “Faces of Influenza” being hosted by American Lung association, at Tri C Metro campus. The point of this event was to raise awareness of the flu, and increase vaccination numbers; Same goal as my project. I never expected the even to end up being a great one. Tri C nursing students along with Kristi Yamaguchi, who is one of the spokesperson, did some campaigning on campus as well as give shots.

The MD from Cleveland Clinic, Representative from Tri C, Kristi Yamaguchi, Cindy from CCHD, and CVS pharmacy rep (reading left to right)

This event was attended by Cindy, from the Cuyahoga County Health department, Kevin from Sinofi (who ensures that everyone gets their flu vaccines at all the health departments), A lady who was in charge of the “Faces of Influenza” for the American Lung Association, the representative of the CVS pharmacy flu vaccine campaign, a doctor from the Cleveland Clinic asthma center as well as Kristi Yamaguchi and her Tri C students and many more. Fox 8 News as well as Channel 5 news was there. And I had to say, this was the most fun I’ve had all semester. Not only was Sandi and I interviewed by Sun News, we also got to meet many people and talk to them.

I got the opportunity to talk to a lot of these representatives and it was a blast. Knowing that I had a similar goal, for my senior project, as them was wonderful and we were able to discuss barriers in getting the message out (fear, lack of education etc) but I got to talk with Kevin and the CVS rep about getting similar programs on case campus. One of the questions I was asked by the Sun Press was how I think this event was helpful, and I thought that it was wonderful having such a big face on a campaign like this, but most of all I think it’s a very positive thing that they had it on a college campus.

I think that as college students, we tend to live in another dimension, and we tend to forget to keep ourselves healthy by getting our shots. So hopefully we will be able to do another flu shot "Clinic" in veal this year hosted by CASE, and hopefully in the future along side Sinofi or CVS.

HOPE EVERYONE IS HAVING A GOOD TIME AT THEIR CAPSTONES, and I cant wait to see everyone back.