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.