First of all, Homer is beautiful! My clinical experience at the Ninilchik Community Clinic was so interesting to see! It is in a rural area and is ran by the local Traditional Tribe Counsel. This community sees a diverse population and has many helpful services to serve their population. The professionals of the clinic showed great hospitality towards me and truly wanted an amazing experience for me. I was able to observe my nurse, Denise, who is a case manager and nurse. She does an amazing job balancing it all and is very respectful to her patients. I was able to also observe another nurse that specializes in the lab portion and the nurse practitioner that was there for the days I was. This group also has a community health provider, behavior specialist, and several others that are great contributors. Throughout my few days here I was able to see a variety of reasons for the visits and were able to learn new things.
I was able to admit the patients by taking their vital signs and completing an assessment. This clinic does their own labs, so I have been able to draw blood for lab and take an INR/PT. I was also able to administer vaccines and learn about their charting process for that. I was able to view and chart in their electronic health record, this was really different to the charting I have seen in the past. To me it seemed to be more clicking then their needed to be. Since it is a rural community, the internet was slower as well compared to Duluth. Another thing that this clinic performs are x-rays, I was fortunate enough to assist in a shoulder x-ray and then able to view the picture. This was interesting to see in such a small clinic.
The community members that I saw were very welcoming to have me as a student and a few even gave me hugs. It was great to see the patients really respect and get along will with the clinic professionals. Many were on first name basis and the professionals were really encouraging to help support the patients to make healthy decisions. I could tell that this clinic really does make a positive impact on their serving community.
Some ways this clinic impacts their community is to have a behavior specialist that can assist with addictions, poor relationships, and other behaviors as well. They have a health coach that helps patients loose weight if they meet the criteria and this is involving a dietitian as well. These are a few of the ways that I learned more about.
I was able to attend an Alaskan Immunizations Workshop as well. At this I was able to compare Alaska to Minnesota. One of the main differences that I found was that Minnesota has vaccines sent directly from the distributor and Alaska gets theirs from a depot which comes from the distributor.
I found my clinical experience to be very educational and made me realize how important public health is within a community. My community clinic showed me that I could work in a rural area for healthcare.
I was able to admit the patients by taking their vital signs and completing an assessment. This clinic does their own labs, so I have been able to draw blood for lab and take an INR/PT. I was also able to administer vaccines and learn about their charting process for that. I was able to view and chart in their electronic health record, this was really different to the charting I have seen in the past. To me it seemed to be more clicking then their needed to be. Since it is a rural community, the internet was slower as well compared to Duluth. Another thing that this clinic performs are x-rays, I was fortunate enough to assist in a shoulder x-ray and then able to view the picture. This was interesting to see in such a small clinic.
The community members that I saw were very welcoming to have me as a student and a few even gave me hugs. It was great to see the patients really respect and get along will with the clinic professionals. Many were on first name basis and the professionals were really encouraging to help support the patients to make healthy decisions. I could tell that this clinic really does make a positive impact on their serving community.
Some ways this clinic impacts their community is to have a behavior specialist that can assist with addictions, poor relationships, and other behaviors as well. They have a health coach that helps patients loose weight if they meet the criteria and this is involving a dietitian as well. These are a few of the ways that I learned more about.
I was able to attend an Alaskan Immunizations Workshop as well. At this I was able to compare Alaska to Minnesota. One of the main differences that I found was that Minnesota has vaccines sent directly from the distributor and Alaska gets theirs from a depot which comes from the distributor.
I found my clinical experience to be very educational and made me realize how important public health is within a community. My community clinic showed me that I could work in a rural area for healthcare.