Conducting research, providing bedside care, advocating for community health-Hopkins nursing students do it all, from local to global.
Research Abroad
This summer, juniors Jeane Garcia and Claudine Hennessey are conducting research in Cape Town, South Africa, as part of the Minority Health and Health Disparities International Research Training (MHIRT) program. Working with researchers from the University of Cape Town, the students are analyzing the patterns of injury of women who experience rape homicides. The goal: to propose nursing and public health interventions based on the data they collect. Garcia describes the experience as “very CSI but much more gritty and incredible!”
Public Health Nursing in Haiti
Students from the Traditional Class of 2007 traveled to Haiti in late winter to conduct community assessments and practice public health nursing skills. A group of Accelerated 2007 students followed in May and provided a glimpse into their international learning experience through their online blog:
Day 6: Holistic care
“Working at the Missionaries of Charity
was the perfect way to end our week in Haiti. Providing holistic, basic care was exactly what the patients—and we—needed. There’s a lot to be said for medical advances, for expensive drugs and technology. But in an area like Jeremie, where much medical care as we know it just isn’t available, a return to basic, low-technology nursing proved quite effective. The activity was intensely moving for both patient and student nurse.”
International Clinicals
In the spring and summer of 2007, 24 Hopkins nursing students traveled to locations in South Africa, Singapore, China, and the United Arab Emirates to complete the final 200-hour clinical rotation required to receive their degree.
This spring, seniors Lisa Becker and Julia Irwin worked in Singapore’s Tan Tock Seng Hospital. “Nursing practice is very similar between Singapore and the U.S., with a few striking differences,” says Becker. “Perhaps most notable was the class system used in determining hospital care.”
MSN/MPH student Kara Franz worked in the children’s ward at St. Patrick’s Hospital in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. “It was interesting to have to learn to adapt in a resource-poor facility without the use of technologies that we take for granted here in the U.S.,” says Franz.
Seniors Ron Noecker and Nicole Weddig conducted their final clinical at the Beijing United Family Hospital.
