Community Health Nursing
NUR2680L
Katherine M Gomez
Semester 1 Orientation
Professor Thomas requested a couple of students from my class to speak to
the incoming Semester 1 students about what to expect as well as advice. Other
students as well as myself included Calvin Gilles, and Emily Shroyer. We had
several topics to share with the students such as time management, study
material, study groups, exam critical thinking, and more. The students were very
interested on the information we had to share, especially the different resources
they may use and where to find them. We recommended Saunders, Kaplan,
question on the back of the chapters, and Adaptive Quizzing/Case Studies.
Something I emphasized the most while speaking to the class was that it is a great
idea to set up study groups. I personally think the study group I created really
helps eveyone not only share their information but also learn from each other.
One thing Ive noticed from the study groups is that we all tend to get information
that we all end up relating to on exams. I believe the information we shared with
the class was useful and essential.
From experience, I would have
appreciated if other students
shared this kind of information
with me. I am pleased giving this
presentation to the new incoming
Semester 1 Nursing Students.
Alcoholic Anonymous
Initially, we were supposed to
attend a group in Quail Roost. Once
we arrived we were told their groups
have days in which they meet in a
different location. As soon as we
arrived, the room had a sense of
comfort not only for those seeking
help for alcoholism but also visitors
like myself. The room was surrounded
with sofas and Christmas lights on the ceiling. As comforting as they can possibly make it for strangers to
come together and share each other’s stories. During our meeting, a man began to speak and we all
introduced ourselves and read other the 12-step of AA. I noticed this man wearing scrubs such as the
scrubs one wears in an OR. As he spoke and told his story, he shared the fact that he was a nurse. I am a
firm believer that things happen for a reason. I thought to myself out of any meeting we could’ve
possibly attended, this meeting was someone who relates.
After this man finished sharing his story, those in the room had the chance to share their
thoughts about what he spoke about. I found it very therapeutic for those seeking help because as many
of them said, it was something they each can relate to. The fact that this man could accomplish sobriety
and improve his relationship with those around him, seems to give those around his hope that things
can change. Although I was not able to relate on the level of being an alcoholic, I really appreciated this
man coming to speak about his life in a room full of complete strangers without any judgment at all.
Only full understanding.
Amistad Breast Cancer Awareness
Prep/Presentation
Our group got together to create the board. I assigned specific
parts to everyone and created a Word document in which
everyone was required to add their part in which I printed
everything. After class we got together with all the materials and
created the board by cutting and pasting with all the information.
We each took part in this making our board look amazing! On
October 25, 2017, our group met in Amistad to meet with the
coordinator where she took us to a conference room while we
waited prepare our table. Around 3pm, we all set up our table and
we were asked to help decorate the room with Halloween decorations for the kids who would be
visiting the room. I worked with my classmates taping certain items on the walls. Our professor thought
it would be a good idea to walk around the floors knocking on everyone’s door to invite them to our
presentation. As the presentation began, we all stood around the board presenting essential
information about Breast Cancer. I was surprised that everyone needed so much education about this
topic, it was a relief that we had several
people raising their hands to ask questions.
After our presentation we cleaned up and I
provided the coordinator our information in
an email just in case she wanted to share it
with the rest of her building.
Cope South Breast Cancer
Awareness
For this event our group had our Breast
Cancer board made that we used for Amistad so it
was much easier to present the board we had
already created. We arrive to Cope South and the
coordinator took our group to the cafeteria to set
up our board. We were told the young girls would
be coming in for lunch and we would be allowing
to speak to them about our topic, so we were all excited! As soon as they came inside to get their lunch
our professor had us approach the girls to speak to them about anything they wanted to know about
breast cancer but to my surprise what they wanted to know what about us being in nursing school. The
girls asked various question related to how we got into the program and how we liked it because they
were interested in one day going to nursing school as well. I felt great that these girls take interested in
their future and also those who were
too scared to ask questions were
able to overhear. I truly hope that
these girls know that they didn’t
once do anything wrong and they too
deserve a future specially to show
their children that its possible and
how far they’ve come.
Health Fair Prep/Presentation
Our group got together to create the board. I assigned specific
parts to everyone and created a Word document in which
everyone was required to add their part in which I printed
everything. After class we got together with all the materials
and created the board by cutting and pasting with all the
information. We each took part in this making our board look
amazing! We all arrived at the field in which a medical campus
professor took our group to set up in our specific section. We
put table clothes and our board set on the table to present to
those who walked around the field. The section we were in included our group and other staff and
students from Miami-Dade College. A few of us walked around to check out what other organizations
were participating in this event and we noticed that
there were many schools, fire stations, and
associations. We sat down with our board and we
spoke to several people who spoke to us about
smoking and their thought of how it affects others. I
thought it was a good turn out because this event
was child friendly which shows not only parents but
also children that smoking is not good for anyone.
Orientation with Professor
Torres 9/6/17
During today’s orientation with Professor Torres, our group met our professor. The
professor introduced herself and gave us a summary of the program expectations. She also
filled us in to the BSN program for Miami Dade, in which I was very interested about. Professor
Torres gave us various options on where we can complete our hours such as Amistad and Cope
South. There will be days set up for the group to do presentations in both locations where we
will present a topic or take blood pressures, etc. We will continue to keep open communication
in a WhatsApp group
conversation.
Breast Cancer Awareness Lecture
1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with Breast Cancer in the community. It is one of the highest
cancer awareness in the United States. Breast cancer can occur at any age and women/men, as well as
environmental or genetic regards. The visitor who gave the presentation went over several topics
relating to this subject. The most interesting topics discussed were
realted to the myths and actual facts about Breast Cancer. Some of
the myths included “if I have a lump in my breast, I have cancer”,
only women with a family history of breast cancer are at risk, I’m too
young to get breat cancer, wearing an underwire bra increases my
risk of getting breast cancer, men cannot get breast cancer, wearing
antipersiprant increases my risk of getting breast cancer, and
mammogram can cause breast cancer to spread. The actual facts to
these myths include that actually 80% of lumps are caused by benign
changes, cysts, or other conditions. 70% of women diagnosesd have
no identified risk factors, 25% of women are younger than 50 years
old, men are as much risk as women, no evidence for antiperspirant risk, and finally radiation doses are
fairly low.
I believe this presentation was beneficial for my class as well as essential for us to learn due to
us as nurse students requiring patient teaching. These are imperative topics to dicusss with the
community specially during the month of Breast Cance
Awareness.
Reflection Hour 10/12/17
Today’s reflection hour was done by Professor Walsh in which she had several students
speak to the group about their experience when they went to Key West. Several of our
classmates were requested to participate in the Hurricane Irma clean up. The students met with
a coordinator in school that day where they then car pooled down to Key Largo. The groups
worked on two houses and everyone split the work inside of the house and outside picking up
algae and branches in the pathway. According to the students, the houses were underwater
then Hurricane Irma hit. The students had to break down walls that were filled with mold. The
owners of the house were extremely grateful with the help that the students provided to clean
their houses. Two other students also took part in their presentation and spoke about them
going to Verde Gardens to volunteer working with children.
Smoking Cessation 10/16/17
Smoking is a popular topic in the
community, responsible for many health
problems. Some facts to know about smoking
include 1,500 children are killed each year by fires
in homes caused by cigarettes, cigarette butts are
among the biggest cause of pollution in beaches,
nicotine in tobacco can be as addictive as cocaine
and heroin, studies show young smokers are more likely to experiment with marijuana, cocaine, heroin,
and other illicit drugs, it can only take weeks or days for new smokers to become addicted, smokeless
Tobacco “chewing tobacco”: carry related factors to smoking including bleeding gums, sores in the
mouth that never heal, and cancer of the mouth, and the most important fact is that is it difficult to quit
smoking once you’ve started.
Second hand smoking is also a topic to be
concerned about, several facts such as the fact that it kills
about 3,000 non-smokers each year from lung cancer,
causes up to 300,000 lung infections such as pneumonia
and bronchitis in babies and young children, infants are at
risk for SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), pets may
suffer too, causing leukemia (cancer) in cats and enlarged
hearts in dogs, causes wheezing, coughing, colds,
earaches, and asthma attacks, ruins smell and taste buds,
causes reddening, itching, and watering of the eyes.
Reflection Hour 10/19/17
Reflection hour with Professor Torres we spoke about more communication throughout
the semester and dates we may meet and coordinate events and presentations. Professor
Torres worked with us to set dates and times to go to a Health Care Fair for Amistad and a
presentation for Cope. We agreed that for our presentation we need to create a board as a
group. We discussed the various kinds of topics we would discuss on the board.
We agreed between the group to split work into a Word document that will be printed,
and we will all get together to put it on the board. We are all excited about going to Amistad
and Cope South!
Reflection Hour 11/16/17
Today’s reflection was done with our Professor. Today our group met to
speak about our experiences in the Health Fair our group participated in related
to Smoking Cessation. We shared with the professor where we were placed as
Miami-Dade College students with the other nursing school BSN program. We
also presented videos and pictures of the other activities that were happening at
the same time. After discussing our experience in the Health Fair, we spoked as a
group the dates we would be turning in our Portfolios. We all came to an
agreement of when we would present everything and agreed to meet one more
time before the semester was over to have a visual tutorial of how to create an
online Portfolio.
Reflection Hour 11/30/17
Today’s reflection consisted of Professor Torres discussing with us how to create
an online portfolio on Blackboard. We began with everyone taking out our laptops to
follow with the professor on the board. I created a portfolio and all items were added
and all we had to do was change the name of the folders to title each one of them with
the titles related to the sign-in sheet we all had. The professor also taught us how to
upload our documents independently. I was able to use my phone to scan my
documents instead of taking a picture of them which I personally thought was easier
and faster. Once we completed our portfolios we all agreed one more time on when we
would be presenting the portfolios to the professor. We are all excited to finish the
semester!
Orientation
Today was the first day of Semester 3. Quiet a few
mixed feelings about what the professors are
explaining to us. From chapters to read, to HESI, to
community hours, and jourgnal entries. There’s a lot
of information I didn’t expect to receive today being
the first day. I sure am glad the professors are well
prepared in sharing so mcuh information with us. Profeffors Walsh, Jamika, and
Freeman were present during this presentation. In addition, we were all also
given an orange sheet to log-in all our hours. A guest speaker, Linda Levin gave a
quick presentation on where we can log hours online as well as a site in case we
want options of where to volunteer. So far so good, but then again it’s only the
first day! I am personally very excited about this class and everything I will be able
to do for the community!
Civic Responsibility Forum
Linda was the guest speaker for this forum.
Today’s main focus revealed to all of us related to the
importance of awareness along the community. Any
issue is essential in my opinion because it decreases
incidence of what is being brought up as awareness. As
nursing students we carry out the responsibility to
provide our time to those who need it. Various
volunteer opportunities are available to us to
volunteer in which Linda presented a powerpoint
with ways to volunteer in the community. Once
institution she shared and was interesting for me
was called “Verde Gardens”. This institution
works with children in which they would allow volunteers to tutor, teach, and play with these
children. From today’s forum I learned various ways to share my skills and time. I will take
advantage of these resources! At the
end of this forum Linda had us write a
letter to ourselves in which we wrote
one thing we learned and three things
we should never forget.
Ethics in Health Care
Professor Freeman was the guest speaker for this forum. Today’s forum spoke
about Ethics of how a nurse is expected and required from a Nurse. Everyone has an
upbringing which influence our Ethics in the workplace. As Professor Johnson gave an
example that she was brought up Christian in which abortion is frowned upon. Due to
the health care openness, there is no space for judgment with the patients. Nurses
acquire these values during socialization into
nursing from codes of ethics, nursing
experiences, teachers, and peers. There are a
couple of issues relating the Code of Ethics such
as Ethics dilemna which usually have no perfect
solutions and those making decision may find
themselves in the position of having to defend their decisions. Also, value conflict which
occurs when we must choose between two things, both of which are important to us.
One example brought up included “assistance for suicide” in which a health care
provider assist the death of a patient. Different methods to work in resolving difference
include listnening carefully without interruptions, seek clarification usign gentle
questioning, respect cultural differences, be attentive to body language, and explain the
context of your point of view and try to picture the other person’s expective of what you
are saying.
Community Health Lecture
Community based nursing has various trends that we need to watch for in the community we
live in. Some to look out for include the changing demographics, technology explosion, increasing in
diversity, globalization or worlds economy and society, more educated consumers, alternative therapies
and genomics, and palliative care. For example, technology explosion is related to the change in charting
in the hospitals. In the earlier days charting was done in paper, during now days most charting is done
electronically.
Other facts I learned
throughout this lecture is
the cost of health care
and the challenges of
managed care. The
economy has a lot of
effect on the cost of
health care, increasing to
the point of one not being able to afford insurance. Another fact is that the foreign that come to the US
from another country need interdisciplinary education for collaborate practice.
In 1910, 90 % of hearing care was provided in the home and later a shift to hospitals in World
War 1. Many things have changed throughout time and it is our job to always keep our information
updated.
