Tuesday, March 13, 2018 - Drew (Public Health Nurse for Epidemiology)
On Tuesday I was able to work with Drew who is the main PHN working with disease epidemiology at the Municipality. Drew was very passionate about his work and would find different articles for me to read about odd cases that he has worked on. Such as a rare Group A Streptococcus, and even one case of a patient with a suspected prion diseases. It was interesting to read about these uncommon things that are still found once in awhile in the present day. He said that there tends to be a higher rate of water and food infectious diseases during the spring and summer months because people are traveling and outdoors more (drinking from streams and other water sources). Currently, the mumps outbreak has been taking up most of his time for the past few months. From May 1, 2017 to present day, there has been almost 300 laboratory-confirmed cases, with 100 pending laboratory results, and almost 400 suspect cases that have been ruled out. This is a large amount compared to 2016 where there were only 2 laboratory-confirmed cases. There have been no deaths caused by mumps during this outbreak. Drew printed off the situation report from March 9, 2018 that he had been working on, and it was interesting to see the statistics on the mumps outbreak laid out so nicely. Also included in the report were the 61 "Response Actions" that have been taken to slow down this outbreak, from media campaigns to presentations to stop the spread. He spent a lot of his day working on making calls to interview the confirmed cases so he can track the progression, and if there are common areas where it seems to be spreading. When there is a highly populated place that might cause a problem, he drafts a letter to send to them and inform what is happening and the next steps that should be taken. One of the problems with telephone interviews he said, was that some people in the underserved population may be difficult to reach if their phone bill hasn't been paid, or if they continue to not answer. This can be frustrating since it is crucial to help stop the spread, that they gather as much information as possible. One of the people we called needed a Hmong interpreter, so it was interesting to see how that works. They typically have their preferred language in their chart, but if not, I can imagine that this would be difficult since you aren't in person. Also, some people were hesitant to give information as they were unsure if the phone call was a scam or telemarketer. Drew has been kept very busy with this outbreak, but it seems like trends are starting to stable out, and will hopefully begin to decrease.
**After this day at the Municipality, we went for a little drive up the mountain. I have put some of these beautiful pictures below!
On Tuesday I was able to work with Drew who is the main PHN working with disease epidemiology at the Municipality. Drew was very passionate about his work and would find different articles for me to read about odd cases that he has worked on. Such as a rare Group A Streptococcus, and even one case of a patient with a suspected prion diseases. It was interesting to read about these uncommon things that are still found once in awhile in the present day. He said that there tends to be a higher rate of water and food infectious diseases during the spring and summer months because people are traveling and outdoors more (drinking from streams and other water sources). Currently, the mumps outbreak has been taking up most of his time for the past few months. From May 1, 2017 to present day, there has been almost 300 laboratory-confirmed cases, with 100 pending laboratory results, and almost 400 suspect cases that have been ruled out. This is a large amount compared to 2016 where there were only 2 laboratory-confirmed cases. There have been no deaths caused by mumps during this outbreak. Drew printed off the situation report from March 9, 2018 that he had been working on, and it was interesting to see the statistics on the mumps outbreak laid out so nicely. Also included in the report were the 61 "Response Actions" that have been taken to slow down this outbreak, from media campaigns to presentations to stop the spread. He spent a lot of his day working on making calls to interview the confirmed cases so he can track the progression, and if there are common areas where it seems to be spreading. When there is a highly populated place that might cause a problem, he drafts a letter to send to them and inform what is happening and the next steps that should be taken. One of the problems with telephone interviews he said, was that some people in the underserved population may be difficult to reach if their phone bill hasn't been paid, or if they continue to not answer. This can be frustrating since it is crucial to help stop the spread, that they gather as much information as possible. One of the people we called needed a Hmong interpreter, so it was interesting to see how that works. They typically have their preferred language in their chart, but if not, I can imagine that this would be difficult since you aren't in person. Also, some people were hesitant to give information as they were unsure if the phone call was a scam or telemarketer. Drew has been kept very busy with this outbreak, but it seems like trends are starting to stable out, and will hopefully begin to decrease.
**After this day at the Municipality, we went for a little drive up the mountain. I have put some of these beautiful pictures below!