Gila River, Arizona

This month, Angel and I have been in Public Health Nursing, each week in a different district. It's been really interesting to see the patients in their own chosen setting, see how they live. There are some things that are much easier to understand once you get to see their home. It brings a whole new element to my personal view of holistic healing.

All of public health has the same tasks that they need to complete outside of patient care each month, but not every group does them the same way. For example, the RN of each district team isn't supposed to have a patient load, and rarely did we see a nurse who didn't go to a patient's home. They are also supposed to do a certain number of char reviews each month, and I only saw one group do that. But despite their differences, they all provide the ever-important patient care. Through them, I also learned about the value of teamwork. I saw groups that worked well together, and I saw some that worked less well together. The groups that did work well together seemed to enjoy work more, updated each other regularly, asked for help when they needed it, and reminded each other of their tasks. In the group that didn't work as well together, the stress was almost palpable, and rather uncomfortable to work in. Having seen this, I think that I will strive to get along with my co-workers and create the best possible working environment and ensure the best patient outcome.

During our last week, we also got to follow a nurse to another Native American community, on a different, smaller reservation, just a half hour away. The physical and aesthetic differences between them were surprising to me. However, I reminded myself that not everything is as it appears, and I'm sure that this community too has their own struggles. But it was an interesting comparison.

Overall, I'm very glad that for the time I had in Public Health, because it really gave me a better overall understanding of the reservation as a whole, and a better personal definition of public health.

Coming to a close with Great Lakes

My time with Great Lakes Home Healthcare and Hospice is coming to an end and I have had an amazing experience. I truly feel like I have become a part of the staff and I am very sad to be leaving. Kailey and I were welcomed with open arms and the staff accommodated us very well. As I said in my previous post, we have had the opportunity to work with med/surg, mom/baby, wound, and hospice nurses. This has given us the opportunity to see people throughout the entire spectrum of life. The nurses allowed us to get so much hands-on experience and I have been able to build on to the nursing skills I already have. Since my first blog post, I have gotten to perform some skills that I have not had the chance to do before. I changed a suprapubic catheter, flushed a medi port, and packet multiple wounds/applied wound vacs. Since I have been running the nursing visits, I have also gotten better at performing my assessments and recognizing abnormals.

Throughout our time with these three nurses, we tried to figure out what type of project would benefit our patient population the best. Because the patients are separated into categories (mom/baby, wound, etc) we figured it would be smart to focus on one of those areas. We chose to focus on the mom/baby population due to the lack of information they are currently receiving from the agency. When they are admitted into our agency, the patients receive a general admission packet which contains information related to the agency, infection prevention, etc. but nothing specific to mom/baby. We have also noticed that a lot of the patients are young, first time mothers.

We decided that the best project would be to make a packet that is specific to mom/baby that could be given out with the general admission packet. We started the project by getting input from the nurses on what they felt would be important aspects of the packet. Once we had that, we put together the packets and got approval from the clinical director. We are awaiting final approval from the director before we print and distribute the packets. We feel that these packets will greatly benefit the new mothers and will give them much needed information about taking care of themselves and their new babies.

Overall, this clinical site has been absolutely wonderful and I would recommend it to anyone! The clinical director said that she hopes we will send students again next summer, and I am very glad that we were able to establish this new site. I am sad that it is almost over, but I could not have asked for a better capstone experience!!

Otis Moss's Annual Live Long Live Strong Health Fair

On July 23, Otis Moss Jr. Medical Center held its annual community wide health fair and offered free health screenings to all age populations. This event was created to help residents in the community receive free health screenings, and to help benefit the uninsured. The overall turnout for the event was about 100 people. Although this did not reach our goal of 150, it was still a success. The rain did not stop people from attending the event, and eventually the weather cleared and left us with a sunny afternoon. I would like to thank all of the nursing student volunteers who came to help out. It is greatly appreciated and the event could not have happened without you.
Some of the health screenings offered at the event include blood pressure, bio nutrition, memory, hearing, HIV, vision for the elderly, blood glucose testing, and mammogram screenings. Residents of Fairfax from the adult population really seemed to utilize the mammogram service as well as the blood pressure screenings.
The Kids Fun World was another large component of the health event. This area offered exercise, smoothies, clowns, balloons, a water slide, a sprinkler, the Fire Department Smoke House, and great prizes such as bikes and gift cards for the winners of various contests. One of the more popular contests was the hula hooping contest. The children seemed very excited for these activities and were great participants.
Part of the reason I feel that this event did not reach 150 residents is due to the organization of the event. Medical providers were being added to the provider list at the very last minute, making organizing the tables and tents hard to accomplish. The advertising for the event was also last minute. If the community members were aware of this free health event at an earlier date, I believe that more people would have participated.
A third factor that played a role in the limited clients who attended the event includes the location of Otis Moss Medical Center. Otis Moss is hidden away on Quincy Avenue and East 89th Street. If it weren't for this Capstone experience, I would not have known that this wonderful health care facility existed. The Cleveland Clinic receives the majority of the recognition because it is profit oriented and continues to create new spaces in the Fairfax neighborhood. After interviewing residents in the Fairfax area, it seems like the people from Fairfax are upset with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation for moving into their territory. One resident referred to the Clinic as "the octopus of the city" because it invades the town and spreads wealth without offering any to their neighborhood. University Hospital needs to advertisement their facilities more in order to let Fairfax residents know about the different health care options in the community. If the residents were more aware of this UH facility, I believe it would be utilized more, especially by the elderly population.
Since Live Long Live Strong is now over, Kana and I are focusing on the creation of our poster, the completion of our paper, and the identification of better methods for evaluating our final data. The hard part about our project is tracking down specific statistics regarding HPV, cervical cancer, and genital warts in the Cleveland area. We have called the Ohio Department of Health, the Cleveland Public Health Department, the Merck Vaccination company, and have researched endlessly online. HPV is considered to be a non-communicable disease according to the health departments, making the statistics hard to track. Kana and I disagree because HPV is spread through genital contact and often people pass it on without knowing as well as after being treated. It will be hard to illustrate that HPV is a concern in Fairfax without these statistics, and without taking up too much of our poster space. We will keep you updated on current information we find and other interesting facts about our capstone experience within the next few weeks.

SHARP and the Summer Shot Clinic

The capstone project that I have been working on this summer at the Shaker Heights Health Department focuses on improving immunization rates in Shaker Heights. We are holding a Summer Shot Clinic in August and are hoping for a great turnout. During the shot clinic, all childhood vaccines will be available. We are also planning on providing information about lead poisoning prevention. My main goal is to reach as many people as possible.

One way that I have been working on this is by collaborating with other organizations in the city to help spread the word about the clinic in the community. A specific group that I have been working with is SHARP (Student Health Advocates Reaching Peers). This is a wonderful group of high school students involved in promoting health through community awareness. The students go through a 3 week training program, during which the health department came to talk to them about our project. I put together a powerpoint presentation about the importance of immunizations as well as the dangers of lead poisoning and ways to prevent it. The SHARP students were very engaged during the presentation and asked many questions. They seemed to be very interested in the project and willing to help us reach the community. I conducted a pre and post test, and the students’ results greatly improved in 4 out of the 5 questions. We came back another day a few weeks later to teach the students how they can help spread the word about the Summer Shot Clinic. I gave examples of different people they may encounter, such as angry people, rude people, and people who are too talkative. We had fun acting out examples with the students and they were all enthusiastic and eager to participate.

After practicing with the students, we put them to the test! We decided to go to Thornton Park, a nearby pool where we thought we would be able to reach a lot of people. We set up a table right at the pool entrance and put out lots of silly bands and tattoos to attract the children. These were a big hit! We had so many kids come up to our table asking if they could have a silly band. Ten SHARP students showed up, which we were very happy with. All of them did an extremely good job of approaching people and passing out flyers. I was impressed with how many people the students were able to talk to! I think preparing them and practicing different scenarios was helpful. I was very grateful that the students of SHARP were so willing to assist us spread the word about the event coming up. We were able to reach many people and hopefully this will increase our turnout at the shot clinic.

Live Long Live Strong at Otis Moss

Today Otis Moss Jr. Medical Center had a health fair event called the “Live Long Live Strong ". My capstone group and few other nursing students from other groups volunteered at the event. This event offered free health screenings for blood pressure, lead toxicity, vision, hearing, HIV, podiatry, nutrition, memory, mammogram, and others. Outside in the parking lot there were vans from Mammovan, Ronald McDonald, Health Department, and Cleveland Fire Department. My capstone group prepared for this event throughout the summer and I felt nervous in the beginning to organize the event. Once the event began it went by very quickly. I had a great experience working with the staffs from other organizations. This event was a great public health experience. It felt rewarding to help the Fairfax community by providing free health screenings and education.

This event not only offered free health screenings but also entertainment for the community. There was an area outside called the Kids Fun Land where children can go and play. We had sprinklers, balloons, face tattoos, slide, and a smoothie stand for the children in the community. Characters such as Ronald McDonald, Scooby Doo, and Spider Man also came to the event to play with children. We also had free raffles at the event for adult and children bike, membership at the gym, and gift cards. Some of the community members and volunteers had a hula hoop competition at the event. Participating in these fun events seemed to bring the community together. People who came to the event seemed to have a great time. I hope Otis Moss will continue to host this health screening event in the future. This was the ninth year for the Live Long Live Strong event. Overall, the event was a great success and I would love to see the event again next year.

NYSP :)

As I am finishing up half of my senior year there are a few different things that I can reflect upon. After teaching volleyball and teach nutrition there were a handful of campers that were sad I wasn't coming back next year and this made me happy. There was even a couple of boys and girls who gave me hugs and had me sign their shirts! As a teacher some of the kids did not show as much respect as when I was a volleyball coach so this was discouraging. We had a lot of specials so some of our class times were disrupted and some of the groups were only able to see us and learn about nutrition two or three times.

During this last week and wrapping up the program our group has been working on our final paper and it has been a good way to show our teamwork to each other. We are excited for the camp to be over for the fact we can now concentrate on this paper and the poster that will display all of our work. We are working on analyzing our pre-test and post test to see the differences in scores and hopefully the percentages of right answers, will increase to show we were able to get some information through to at least a couple of campers.

Final NYSP

Half way through the camp and I changed my role from an educator to a coach.  In the children's perspective this was a good thing because many of them got to see the down to earth, real side of my personality and not the strict teacher they began to signify me as.  At this point I had the opportunity to interact with the children, still educational but on a different aspect.  I actually had the chance to participate in football with the different groups and experience how exhausting it was to be playing the sports in the hot sun. 

Overall I had a great experience with the program and I have definitely seen the changes that occurred with many of the children.  Watching the kids learn and develop new skills while having fun and enjoying the camp as well.  As a coach it was a challenge to motivate some of the kids cause football is a rough and challenging sport especially in the weather we were faced with.  Though, it was a great achievement to encourage the children and watch as they became more engaged with the sport with positive reinforcement and recognition of accomplishments they have made. 

It was only a five week camp but it has exhausted me mentally, emotionally, and physically.  I have learned so much about myself personally throughout my participation in the camp as well as the community in Cleveland and surrounding areas.  The camp involves children from various regions of the city which gives you a better understanding about the entire surrounding community as a whole.  It was a shock just to notice the differences in the individuals even though they lived so close together.  The experience was also a big cultural shock too, being immersed into a program of 400 children mostly African American.  Though, I learned so much just being exposed to the cultural on a first hand basis.  It was definitely a benefit to our experience in our public health rotation as a nursing student.