This week is the beginning of clinicals for our group. Monday we went to the Anchorage Native Medical Center to learn about their programs. We started the morning by listening to Josie and her wonderful story about who she is and how she grew up. She told us that both of her parents are from different Alaskan cultures and the traditions that influenced her as a child. Her story was inspiring to hear about her native culture and how she still incorporates it in her daily life today. We then listened to nursing leadership and the opportunities within the hospital as a new graduate. After that we were able to hear about the environmental changes that are being made. We see global warming is happening in Minnesota by the easy winters, but up here in Alaska we see a larger impact. This is affecting communities by thawing the grounds to create swamp land and creating parts of the shoreline to crumble. We heard about the healthy changes that are being made to help with the sewage and clean water as well without thawing the frozen ground. We were then able to learn about the community health aides, these are people from the village that are appointed to care for their village. There are also dental health aides that are in the process of doing minimum dentistry work for a community. I think this would be a very intriguing position to hold for a village since they are the connection to a primary provider. A community health aide is able to prescribe some medications, care for the village members, and undergoes several weeks of training for this position after high school. Lastly, we were able to learn about their integrated care and traditional healing that is popular in Alaska.
Our next adventure was off to Homer, Alaska for our Alaska clinicals. But first we had to stop for delicious ice cream! I have been placed at Ninilchik Community Clinic. This is a small clinic connected to a community outreach program. There is one room for an emergency that can do minimum for cares and can prepare a patient to be sent to a level 2 facility. The clinic is able to do such things as splint, incubate for a short time, and give IV medication. This is important since there is not critical care access near. There is a lab room in the clinic and they are able to perform some of their own labs such as a CBC, INR, and urine sample. It is important to be able to perform their own since it takes 4 hours to send the labs to Anchorage and some lab samples may expire before they reach Anchorage.
Our next adventure was off to Homer, Alaska for our Alaska clinicals. But first we had to stop for delicious ice cream! I have been placed at Ninilchik Community Clinic. This is a small clinic connected to a community outreach program. There is one room for an emergency that can do minimum for cares and can prepare a patient to be sent to a level 2 facility. The clinic is able to do such things as splint, incubate for a short time, and give IV medication. This is important since there is not critical care access near. There is a lab room in the clinic and they are able to perform some of their own labs such as a CBC, INR, and urine sample. It is important to be able to perform their own since it takes 4 hours to send the labs to Anchorage and some lab samples may expire before they reach Anchorage.