Otis Moss

My experience at the Otis Moss Jr Health Center in the Fairfax community has really been insightful. I came into contact with my interesting and exciting patients. I can remember my last of clinicals there being crazy busy.I was able to interact with many teenagers and provide STD teaching to them. I really enjoyed this because they were all able to respond to me and they felt comfortable speaking with me. The children at the clinic as well were all so adorable. The nurses and doctors their are all very helpful because they allow you to actually provide patient care. So i felt very confident in my skills. The public health nurse is always so busy coming up with new outreach programs. I really enjoyed the Diabetes Forum we did with Merck & Co. It was fun coming up with different ways to keep patients excited and engaged. We had really great folders to give to him with all kinds of healthy recipes. It just felt good to be apart of a change and to work with a big company like Merck.
I really enjoyed the free lunches from the pharmaceutical companies that we often got too :) . The medical assistants I loved because they were so helpful. They taught me how to draw blood and do assessments. I was really cool and they were so friendly.

My Spartan Experience

 

So this is my first time here in Cleveland. I was so excited to come here due to the thought of working in the Cleveland Clinic and adjusting to a new environment away from my "paradise life". It has been such a big adjustment as far as learning the bus routes (when im so used to having my car), getting away from the party life and the weather. During the first month I got lost trying to find my way to the RTA station (took me an hour and a half, lol). But I finally made it to the mall :).
I remember my first week of intensives. I thought I was going to lose my mind being in class from 8 to 5 everyday for 2 weeks but it turned out to be amazing because my professors were funny, engaging and I learned so much. I especially enjoyed my Health in the Global Community class. Mrs Katia Almaida was such a free-spirited teacher and she always kept my interest. My experience at the Cleveland Clinic was beyond up-lifting. I learned so much from the nurses and doctors. My patients were all wonderful and very inviting. I feel as thought my skills have definitely ventured.
I've met some amazing students from all over, china, ghana, india and canada. I have fallen in love with all of them, especially my nursing companions. They have been hospitable and have shown me such a great time. My first "outting" was the PAINT PARTY during the first week of classes. I had such a great time and got paint in every corner of my body, literally lol. I have went to the Euclid Tavern and performed karaoke, in which I've gotten great compliments for my singing.
Now that the cold weather has set in it has been a big adjustment but my roommate and I always seem to find our way to the mall and restuarants (Applebees and Cheesecake Factory which is my favorite). I am dreading the snow but also looking forward to it.

School Health at Gila River

During the last two weeks of our semester, we were able to spend time in school health nursing. For two weeks, we traveled to each of the seven districts on the reservation, which each have their own public school system. We administered influenza vaccinations to students in pre-school through twelfth grade, using the live nasal vaccines and the Bioject needless systems. It was very interesting to use both of these vaccines because neither of us had used them prior to working at Gila River.

I had heard about the live nasal vaccines before, because FPB participated in a flu clinic where they were administered. I had never heard of the Bioject system. It was really interesting to learn how to use the Bioject. It is positioned just as a traditional IM injection is, on the deltoid muscle of the arm. Carbon dioxide is released at a very high speed and is injected into the muscle. Apparently the vaccine is distributed over a wider area of muscle tissue, and the students seemed to be less afraid of a needless system than they were of the traditional IM injections.

I really enjoyed working with the school aged children, and learning to use these new vaccine methods made this part of my capstone entertaining.

Public Health at Gila River

We started our public health rotation this week, and after completing one week in the public health setting, I feel that I have gained insight and a better knowledge of the Gila River population. I have spent this week with an LPN, making home visits to the Sacaton Village, District 3 of Gila River Indian Community. Working directly with the people of the community, I am able to see how and under what conditions the community members live. There seems to be a very high rate of unemployment, and a resulting atmosphere of poverty. There is trash, unused cars and trucks and children’s toys littering most yards, and there is very little, to no landscaping done around any of the homes. Graffiti covers the sides of some of the houses, and several windows and doors are boarded up on home that are both inhabited and abandoned. The conditions in which people live inside their homes is sadly not much better, and hygiene does not seem to be a high priority here, which is deeply concerning. It is sad to see how the people live in this way.

As visiting nurses, we are responsible for helping patients fill their medication boxes, usually for a week, sometimes two weeks, at a time. Many patients are not compliant with their medications, and we provide patient teaching, which we hope will encourage them to take their medications more frequently. We also take vital signs on some patients who require closer monitoring. The most shocking discovery I’ve made this week has been the non-compliance with taking blood sugars as directed. Many patients admit to not checking their blood sugars for days at a time, and are repeatedly asked to do so.

We have also participated in a flu clinic for the elders of the community, which was interesting. We will continue to work with the public health nurses next week before we move on to school health. I am looking forward to seeing what we will learn about the community next week.

Final Days at the Catholic Charities

Time flew by for Tessa and I at the Catholic Charities. My days went by so quickly it was a total shock to me that Tessa and I were finishing so soon. Everything went really well for Tessa and I. We were able to develop relationships with all the volunteers at the healthcare center as well as relationships with the patients. We both were shown that we were trusted and members of the team by given independence and allowing us to be in charge of referring patients for further procedures and continuation of their care. As mentioned by Tessa in her post, we were able to implement educational posters and gauge our results with a pre and post-test to see if the posters actually increased knowledge of diabetes. We did all of the calculations and discovered that our teaching and implementation showed an improvement of 39% in the scores of the patients from pre to post test. Diabetes is a major problem of the patients who are seen at the Catholic Charities and it's great to know that we're helping them take a step in the right direction of managing their disease and becoming more aware of the risks and complications of it.
Overall this was a great experience for me. I got to follow cardiologist, ophthalmologists, endocrinologists, urologists, orthopedic, podiatrists and general physicians and gained so much knowledge and information from every one of them. I also got to see the pharmacy and how they worked and learn a great deal about what medications are used for what and the adjustment of these medications. This is a great place for someone to volunteer their time and is somewhere that I plan to volunteer my time at once I graduate.

Final Days at Otis Moss, Jr. Health Center

As my capstone comes to an end I am able to reflect on the many experiences that I had at Otis Moss, Jr. Health Center. I have gained so much from my capstone experience. Not only did I learn task-oriented skills, but I also immersed myself in the culture of the Fairfax community. Towards the end of my experience, I began to truly understand what many of the families and patients at Otis Moss deal with on a day to day basis. Throughout my experience I built positive relationships with the staff members, and was able to utilize their knowledge to help me grow as a student nurse. The most valuable experiences that I had at Otis Moss were interacting with patients and their families. I began to see patients and families come back multiple times and I was able to build relationships with those families. I also learned a lot from the triage calls. Yvette, the RN in the pediatric office at Otis Moss, Jr. Health Center assisted me in gaining confidence while speaking with and advising parents. As the semester progressed, I saw my responsibilities at the health center increase. It was a great challenge to meet the expectations of the staff at Otis Moss.

Our Vitamin D project turned out to be a success. I loved seeing parents comment on the posters that we had made for the exam rooms. Our interventions sparked a lot of questions with the parents and we were able to educate them on the resources of Vitamin D. Overall, my capstone experience was great. I am so glad that I got to spend my semester at the Otis Moss, Jr. Health Center.

The End of the China Adventures

It is unbelievable how quickly time flew by. Just yesterday, we were meeting students to escort us to Wuhan University. Now, we are flying back to America. These past two and a half months has honestly been life-changing. Doing my capstone in China will be a once in a lifetime opportunity that I definitely will never forget. I have learned so much about the culture as well as traditional Chinese medicine. The older generation tends to have more faith in TCM than the younger generation probably because of the strong influence of Western medicine. Nevertheless, in every pharmacy that has Western medicine, there is a TCM section as well. The respect for elders is also very prevalent throughout all parts of China. On the bus, there are televised advertisements demonstrating proper etiquette which includes offering your seat to an elder. Also, in an ironic silly sort of way, the elderly are often taken cared of by their children, but the elderly also care for their grandchildren as well. They still hold certain responsibilities especially when the parents are too busy working to care for their children.

We were able to visit mental hospitals where it was actually depressing to see adolescents cooped up in one room with a limited amount of entertainment resources. They just had one TV, a ping pong table, and chairs and tables where they could read or draw. Patients are interviewed individually by a group of doctors and nurses, an experience that I would find intimidating. The staff also has little time to interact with the patients so when they saw us foreigners, they all crowded around eager to speak English with us. We were invited to teach them some basic English words so we reviewed fruits, vegetables, and different sports with them. It was quite interesting to see how well they responded to us. However, I don’t believe that the care in this institution is of good quality, and I think that their protocols and plan of care should change dramatically to one that puts the patient’s best interest as a priority.

We have met so many amazing people here and have made an abundance of good friends. Everyone has been so eager and willing to help us with anything that we need. They truly made sure that we were taken cared of, and I really appreciate this wonderful belief in hospitality. I believe that part of this is due to the general idea/outlook on foreigners. All the Chinese people are so excited to talk with us as they so eagerly want to practice their English. This experience has been incredible. It could not have been more perfect, and I would not change this experience for anything in the world. Because of this, I am more worldly and more culturally aware. The Chinese work very hard day and night and yet they continue live simple lives with few complaints. This is an idea I hope to adopt one day. I am ever so grateful for this wonderful opportunity!