Public Health Nursing in Gila River

The month of July was such an interesting month for me. I began my rotation in Public Health Nursing and enjoyed it a lot. Up until now we had not seen many of the districts except that of districts 1, 3, 5, and 6. Well for each week that we were in public health, we were assigned a different district and proceeded to work each week in a new one. All of the districts have different housing ranging from old to new. The newer houses are what the reservation is pushing towards and moving away from the old style houses. There are some residents who are a little torn between getting a new house because for some of them, the houses have been in their families since they were built. Being relocated to different lands has also poses a bigger problem so keeping them on land that has also been in the family for generations has to be taken into consideration when building these houses. Public health nursing has given me a very different insight on the patients that we have seen. We had gotten to go to many different patients’ homes and view them one on one. We performed tasks such as basic assessments, vitals, monitoring blood sugars, medications, and even some teaching. I was welcomed into majority of the patients’ houses and they enjoyed talking to me and finding out a little about why I was there. I was able to see the way some of the natives have lived and could tell that a lot of them were keen on trying to improve their health. They would keep up on their medications and go visit the hospital on a follow up that may be planned for them by the public health nurses. I also got to learn a lot about the Pima’s past through talking with some of the residents as well as reading that were provided by one of the nurses. It was truly a great experience and I feel better prepared in both knowledge and skills.

I continued to keep up on my fry bread experiences and tried their green chili. It does not compare, in my opinion to red chili, however. I had more red chili on multiple occasions and have enjoyed it greatly. It is probably one of my new favorite foods and hoping to obtain a recipe. It was a great experience and for our last weekend here we plan on going tubing down Salt River. We are hoping for a great time with new friends and then sadly after that we must leave on the long journey back to Ohio. This experience has taught me a lot and I am truly thankful for having been able to participate in such an experience. The staff and the community that we worked with were all great and accepting and they definitely allowed for this experience to have been amazing and allowed us to get the most out of it. I am already beginning to miss this place and I have not even left yet. I feel this is something that has helped shape my nursing goals and will be able to be applied throughout the rest of my nursing career.

Frybread