Nursing and International Health
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
In summer of 2007, I had the opportunity to study Spanish and complete a
nursing internship through my university in the rural northern Mexican state
of Coahuila in a town called Parras. What drew me to the Parras program was
the opportunity to complete a community project in the field of my choice.
One of my peers and I were chosen to work in the community health clinic of
Parras, a facility only used by those in extreme need. The opportunity to
actually work alongside doctors and participate in life and death decisions
was incredible. It was at this clinic that I witnessed my first c-section
birth, my first severed finger, and most importantly my first death. I felt
stimulated by the challenge. I learned to overcome my difficulty with the
language and to connect with my clients in other ways. My experience was
culminated in my thesis that I wrote on a subject of my choice. In
brainstorming ideas, I recognized the fact that the clinic was far from
adequate: clothes and linens were washed together and then hung to dry in
the open air on a clothes line while neighbors burned trash, supplies were
in short supply and continuously autoclaved and reused, and hand soap was
not even in the bathrooms. You don’t need to be a science major to
recognize that the aforementioned deficiencies represent serious threats in
the transmission of disease. It was not that the hospital did not care about
these problems, but that there simply were no resources to provide adequate
safety and hygiene.
I quickly became filled with a sense of concern over this social injustice
but simply could not wrap my mind around why this was happening, so I
decided to apply this passion to my thesis project: an explanation of the
Mexican healthcare system and how the clinic in Parras fits into this
superstructure. I used all three of my majors in this pursuit, actively
interviewing doctors and administrators at the hospital, researching
scholarly journals online, and researching low-cost alternatives that the
hospital could implement to improve sanitation and patient care. After an
entire summer researching this subject and working with it firsthand in the
clinic, I completed a 15-page thesis in Spanish under the direction of Dr.
Lilianet Brintrup of HSU and was awarded an “A” letter grade for my
efforts.
My dedication to the study and development of nursing within international
healthcare systems has only just begun. In 2008 I was able to volunteer once
a week with the Mobile Medical Office, a non-profit medical bus that goes
out to under-served communities in Humboldt County and provides free to
minimal cost quality healthcare. A large part of the clientele consists of
immigrants from Meso and Central America and have limited to no English
skills. I assisted by serving as a translator in which I greeted
Spanish-speaking clients, took their vital signs, and assisted them with
filling out the forms necessary to the bureaucracy of the system.
I will graduate from HSU in one year with three baccalaureate degrees, but
this can only be accomplished if I complete summer school. After some
research, I discovered a program in Puebla, Mexico offered by USAC
(University Studies Abroad Consortium), one of the primary study abroad
programs offered at HSU via the University of Nevada at Reno. This program
offers classes key to my study of international health: global health and
medical Spanish. With your assistance, I hope to be able to participate in
this program and prepare myself for a career in international health.
posted in: California