On my first clinical day, I arrived at the Homer Public Health office and was greeted by my preceptor, Stephanie PHN II. We started our day with a quick tour of the office and then hit the road for our first adventure. After a 30 minute drive and an almost two mile walk down the switchback trail, we arrived at the Russian Old Believer Village of Kachemak Selo. The community is secluded, private and home to around 200 residents. The main reason for our visit was to introduce the community to a local program called CERT (Community Emergency Response Team). Due to the community’s location, they are at risk for disasters such as earthquakes, mudslides and tsunamis. Stephanie explained the CERT program to Terry the school nurse and to a local community member who agreed to put information in the next parent letter. Afterwards, I was able to meet some of the elementary children, view their classrooms and distribute MyPlates. One other important public health concern I learned about is that the community does not vaccinate their children which lead to a previous pertussis outbreak of 61 cases last year.
After our time in the village, we returned to the public health office for afternoon clinic appointments. The individual services I witnessed included an HPV immunization and two TB screenings. Our last part of the day was spent handing out condoms at a local bar called the Salty Dawg Saloon. This community level intervention was an important implementation because Alaska has the highest rate of Chlamydia in the country. Overall, it was a great first day of clinical! I learned so much about public health and city of Homer.