How do you feel about your Public Health rotation?

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Specializes in Med/Surg, L&D.

I am in PH right now and I can not wait for it to be over! I am really interested in and supportive of the great things that public health nurses do. I think I would enjoy working in public health at some point in my career.

But I HATE this clinical! My classmate and I are placed with a school nurse. Our days consist of: taking heights, weights and blood pressures of kids; watching the nurse type her charting (we aren't allowed to do any of it); watching the nurse answer her emails; going to the most ridiculously boring and long staff meetings; shopping for supplies for the health office. I feel like I have learned absolutely nothing this block. I feel especially sorry for some ADN students from a trade school that are placed here. This is their placement for their peds rotation!

Then we go meet our clinical instructor for post conference once a week. She is the most scatterbrained, weird person I have ever met. I usually really enjoy post conference with other instructors, but during these I find myself checking the clock every two minutes.

So, anyhow, has anyone had a good public health rotation? Is this just a matter of the placement I happened to get, or is this clinical inherently boring?

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Specializes in NeuroICU/SICU/MICU.

We have a ridiculously complicated group project for our public health rotation. I don't think we even have scheduled clinical hours. We just have to get 90 hours working on this project by begging for interviews with school nurses, health department nurses, etc. I was hoping after my preceptorship it would all be "down hill" to graduation, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Orientation for public health is tomorrow, though, so maybe my impressions based on the syllabus and assignment descriptions will be wrong :/

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Specializes in Med/Surg, L&D.

Oh we had a ridiculously complicated project as well, but we have clinical hours on top of it. Occasionally we can sneak in some of the work in on it at clinicals, but for the most part I sit there watching the instructor screw around and ruminate on how much work I have to do on the project.

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I'm really enjoying community health. Hours at a local health department, working with a family on all their health needs and writing a care plan for them, Red Cross, and some community service products. It's much less intense than our other clinicals, at least so far!

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Specializes in Med/Surg, L&D.

Ah, it sounds like you are actually doing things in your rotation. That would be nice. I am also suffering from extreme senior-itis, so I have that working against me as well. I can't wait to move on to my senior practicum!

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My daughter's community clinical consists of a big group project, and.... painting fluoride on kid's teeth. She does get a bit of down time to study but all in all, she's not learning much. Sigh.

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I am currently a senior nursing student and have mental health and public health for my final rotation, besides capstone. Right now public health is a little stressful and scary. We are required to make 10 patient visits with one patient and 5 with another. Both of these are also mental health clients. We are required to go to their homes and do skilled nursing care as well as physical/environmental assessments. Starting with the first visit we are alone when we enter patient's home and are required to stay a minimum of 1 hour in each of the homes. Not all of these visits are within the area and some in our group get to drive around 45 min to the visits. Has anyone experienced this type of rotation before? If so, what should I be expecting?

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when i took public health, back in the day when florence was a probie (look it up), our section started a public health unit in a local clinic. we had to visit patients in their homes, assess their knowledge about their conditions/meds/self care/ family dynamics/safety awareness/moremoremoremore, and then discuss them with our peers in post conference twice a week. we spent some time with an independent nurse practitioner in the clinic, while she saw and counseled patients.

if you're hating your rotation, consider this: ask every nurse you come into contact with (in clinicals or elsewhere) why they do what they do, and more importantly, why they don't do what they don't do. i'll bet your school nurse is a fount of information about the increasing numbers of kids with serious medical problems who are now mainstreamed, the consequences of doing good health screenings (eye, hearing, scoliosis, nutrition, looking for bruises that indicate abuse.....) in the school-age population, and the challenges of working for two or three schools in the course of a week (and teaching the teachers about the health needs of the kids). you aren't seeing all this because it happens on a different schedule than other kinds of nursing. but do ask. you might not want to be a school nurse, but at least you'll know why based on a better data set.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Emergency Medicine, Flight.
she is the most scatterbrained, weird person i have ever met. i usually really enjoy post conference with other instructors, but during these i find myself checking the clock every two minutes.

we must have the same instructor lmaooooo

oh we had a ridiculously complicated project as well, but we have clinical hours on top of it. occasionally we can sneak in some of the work in on it at clinicals, but for the most part i sit there watching the instructor screw around and ruminate on how much work i have to do on the project.

we have to do some goofy project for our class as well.

*3 home visits

*2 offsites

*2 simulation days

i dont think its cool that they makes us drive all over gods green earth for this clinical..gas isnt free and we all dont go to the same homes/ off sites so we cant pair up and car pool... ughh. so annoying :( its all almost over tho :)

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Specializes in LDRP.

we dont have a public health semester that i know of... from what im hearing im possibly lucky? haha i think for peds we do like 2 days with a school nurse. and in med surge we did 2 days in a health clinic..

visiting patient homes alone and doing skills as a student seems unsafe and sort of illegal... what happens if you do something wrong?

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Specializes in Critical Care, Emergency Medicine, Flight.
we dont have a public health semester that i know of... from what im hearing im possibly lucky? haha i think for peds we do like 2 days with a school nurse. and in med surge we did 2 days in a health clinic..

visiting patient homes alone and doing skills as a student seems unsafe and sort of illegal... what happens if you do something wrong?

they are at approved places, and our instructors have spoken to the patients beforehand. and at the offsites we go to we are with another person/employee of the facility so its not like we are ever alone.

im not crazy about it but what can ya do? eh

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My Community Health Practicum wants us to reach out to the community and create a Health Behavior change project. They suggested getting in touch with a local church and when I did, the church was very cold and didn't really want to offer help. So I'm stuck figuring out what to do. I asked about working with a non profit organization, and was told that we should steer away from service groups. So I'm like WTH should I do to get these practicum hours in place prior to completion of this course. Many people in my neighborhood are very cold and not helpful.

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