Experience at Cuyahoga County Board of Health (CCBH)

My experience at the Cuyahoga County Board of Health (CCBH) in Parma, Ohio has been perceptive, educational and thought-provoking. During the orientation date and since then, we were warmly welcomed and accepted by the staff of CCBH, particularly the nurses. Within a short period of time, we have integrated ourselves as nurse interns of CCBH and were provided a variety of opportunities to collaborate with them in several public health-related projects (i.e. environmental science and sanitation visits) and patient-interaction through the family planning clinic, the immunization clinic, and the travel clinic. I was able to witness and observe the wide range of what public health nurses do in terms of meeting the needs of the community. 

I am involved with the Family Planning Clinic, and had had observation days in the immunization clinic and the traveling clinic -- shadowing my preceptor, the physician, public nurses, and meet and interact with the clients. In the immunization and travel clinics, I learned different facts about vaccines, recommended vaccines if traveling out-of-state (specific to country and client-specific), and how to deal with a wide array of patients. It was definitely a eye-opening experience, especially dealing with patients from a physician's perspective and a public nurse's perspective. For the majority of the time, my group and I worked on publicizing the "My Life, My Body" Family Planning Clinic and educating the clients (if uninsured) about the Medicaid Waiver to help reimburse the clinic. The Family Planning Clinic provides services at low-cost (based on sliding scale) or free -- services such as birth control, HIV/STD testing, pregnancy testing, reproductive health education, etc.  By shadowing my preceptor, I am also now more aware of how sensitive the topic of sexual/reproductive health is as well as how crucial and important public health is. I observed and applied the skills of handling all kinds of topic in a sensitive and appropriate matter, for example, contraceptives, STI testing and treatment, HIV testing, pregnancy testing, PAP smears and sexual health education.

My favorite experience thus far was doing newborn home visits. The public health nurse I was paired up with was very friendly and approachable. It was such an intimate experience because the nurse and I were able to have a close and personal interaction with the clients. When the nurse and I went to a client's home for a newborn home visit, I was able to see the follow-up care -- vital signs from the mother and the baby, physical assessment of the newborn, and post-partum depression risk assessment. It was such an amazing opportunity to see the interaction between the nurse, the baby, and the mother, sometimes the father. Also, I was surprised by the educational component of the home visit -- many mothers have questions and need resources for her family and newborn -- this program is great for low-income families because the nurse provides additional resources and ways to get resources for free.

As part of our outreach efforts, my group and I are currently advertising Family Planning Clinic at Tri-C western campus -- we have set up a booth by University Counseling office. Our shifts are 10AM-2PM and 5PM-7PM. By outreaching at a community college, we aim to increase awareness of the services that CCBH offers.

I am consistently surprised by the large spectrum of responsibilities that the CCBH has. I am so grateful for the people who work here -- because of them, the community's needs are met and/or handled.