Barry University BSN Program Exposes RNs to Community Health Concerns
Used to be, when Mary Massieu noticed that a patients problems went beyond strictly health concerns, she would think to herself: Turn it over to the social worker. As a registered nurse on the telemetry floor of South Miami Hospital, she had enough to do keeping track of her patients vital signs without worrying about social issues, too. But I cant say that anymore, says Massieu, who earned her bachelors degree in nursing at Barry University in May. Ive got to really look at my patients and see what theyre going home to.
Massieus attitude changed while taking a course in community health nursing at Barry. Forty percent of Barry nursing students clinical experiences are in community settings in South Florida, where they provide primary healthcare services such as screenings, education, and advocacy for change. Students in the community health nursing course dedicate every Friday for ten to fifteen weeks to a daycare center, adult care center, church, or social service agency. Massieu and a classmate were assigned to a daycare center in Homestead run by the Redlands Christian Migrant Association. One of six RCMA centers in southwest Miami-Dade, the center serves the children of Mexican migrant workers and is staffed entirely by members of the local migrant community. The center was spotless and all the kids seemed really happy, Massieu observes. But the children had chronic runny noses green runny noses.
Encouraged by the community health course to take environmental factors into account, Massieu attributes the chronic infections to the living conditions of extreme poverty. Exhaustion from long hours in the field makes it difficult for families to clean house, especially when there may not be running water or money to buy cleaning supplies. The BSN students worked with the childrens caretakers to promote hand washing at the facility as well as having the children drink more fluids.
Community nursing allows students to see how patients live outside the hospital
It really opened my eyes, Massieu says of the experience. Theres more to treating our patients than what happens in the hospital.
Helping nurses make that connection is the key to community health. A community-based curriculum allows students to assess individuals and families in their own communities, where they see the cultural and environmental influences on health and the barriers to healthcare services, says Dr. Pegge Bell, dean of the Barry University School of Nursing. In the RN to BSN program, acute care nurses are exposed to the conditions their patients face outside the hospital. The students dont realize how people live, says Gene Majka, an instructor at Barry who teaches the community health nursing class to RNs earning their BSN degrees through the Baptist Scholars program for nurses in the Baptist Health System. I always get feedback saying now I treat my students differently.
Yessenia Salgado, a registered nurse at Baptist, cared for the elderly when she worked in a pulmonary step down unit at the hospital. But before her Friday visits to the Seymour Gelber Adult Daycare Center in Kendall she says, I never saw them actively out in society. Salgado was impressed to see the population singing, dancing, and engaged in arts and crafts. Although the elders received impeccable care, she and a classmate noticed that many had the fragile skin typical of aging. At the end of the term, the students gave the seniors a presentation on the importance of protecting the skin to avoid infection.
Hernando Mispireta was well aware that not all seniors receive such exemplary care; he found his vocation as a nurse after bringing his father who suffered from Alzheimers to Miami from his native Peru where, he says, my father was basically abandoned. Earning his BSN at Barry while working in neo-natal intensive care at South Miami Hospital, Mispireta completed his community nursing at an RCMA daycare center in Florida City. He recorded a high incidence of skin rashes among the children, likely from exposure to the pesticides on their parents clothes. We had to let the parents know to take a shower and change clothes before touching the children, he says. With his classmate, Mispireta kept data on the childrens health in a spread sheet to identify patterns and arranged a mini-health fair for the families and staff.
The experience enlightens you as to the lack of health care available to people living in this country, Mispireta observes. Inspired, he joined a citizens working group to make recommendations to the U.S. Congress on health care, became active in the Florida Nursing Association, and is part of the electoral college, hoping to help elect officials who will effect change. One door leads to another, he says. This work in the community not only opened my experience as a nurse, but inspired me to act on larger issues as well.
