Randolph-Macon College issued the following announcement on Nov. 22
Six students in Nursing Professor Wendy Hunter’s Population Health Immersion course spent a weekend collaborating with community health partners in rural Gray, Tennessee, aiding an underserved population and putting their learning on the subject into practice.
As volunteers at the November 5-7 clinic, the group traveled to join Remote Area Medical (RAM), a nationwide nonprofit provider of free pop-up health clinics, to provide people who are under-insured with free medical, dental, vision, and other health care. The much-anticipated clinic, held at the Appalachian Fairgrounds, saw people waiting in their cars almost 24 hours before the clinic began.
“This was an opportunity to study an unfamiliar population beyond the classroom walls,” Professor Hunter said. “Students went in with ideas and goals about how to address health issues within a community, and they left having tested some of those ideas in the real world.”
Each day of the weekend began at 6 a.m. with the six Randolph-Macon students conducting first-touch health assessments that included checking blood pressure and blood glucose levels, noting vital signs, and referring patients to other services at the clinic. During the 14-hour days they triaged patients based on intake data and circulated them through the appropriate service stations within the clinic, like auditory, dermatology, reproductive, and women’s health care.
Over the weekend, RAM reports that 339 Tennessee residents received care, equating to $187,000 of free medical services.
“It was a really meaningful experience that brought nursing’s holistic care to the center,” said Sophie Grammen ’23. “We got to sit down with patients and learn about their background while we assessed them, which helped us direct them to the appropriate resources.”
Professor Hunter said that the course is intended to give students the chance to explore a specific population in depth, with emphasis on analyzing how a population’s health is influenced by its members’ day-to-day activities and developing the fundamental skills necessary to provide culturally competent care. She noted that this semester, students chose to focus on treating people with disabilities, but that they quickly learned that “statistics don’t always paint the full picture of a population.” As they immersed themselves and got to know the residents, students came to understand that many of the area’s health issues went beyond disability status and included underlying problems such as insurance barriers, access to dental care, drug abuse, and the cascading effect of chronic illnesses left untreated.
“It reinforced our belief in the need for basic dignity and caring for people with empathy and compassion from the start,” Professor Hunter said.
When they left the fairgrounds each evening, Professor Hunter, who previously lived in the area, drove students to different parts of the community for a closer look at the various contributing factors at play in the health issues they saw at the clinic. She said Gray residents were welcoming and appreciative of their work and interest. After she mentioned why she and her students were in town to their hotel’s manager, he thanked them for “blessing the community” and discounted their stay.
Grammen was touched by the level of gratitude displayed by everyone she encountered over the course of the weekend, though felt like she should be the one giving thanks—”for letting me get to know them,” she said. “It was an important lesson in staying open-minded and being grateful for everything life gives you.”
Professor Hunter added that the experience reminded her that “you never know someone’s full situation or what they’re going through. A lot of people are quick to judge, but nurses have to look at the environment and culture surrounding people in order to truly empathize with them. My students were fabulous at that. They were professional, caring, inclusive, dignified, and respectful of patients. They were all I could ask for in fellow care providers.”
Original source can be found here.
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