SiwanRN

You may have luck just contacting your local schools of nursing to see if you can volunteer for research experience.

Hm.. Are you a member of your state's public health association, or the American Public Health Association? If you are the only nurse and there is not another nurse (even one perhaps at the 3 county consortium) you can ask these questions, likely there will be a mechanism in your state association (or if you have a state public health nurse association, even better) where you can connect with peers who can hopefully help provide you with advice. Public health is so different in every state, advice from even a neighboring state might not be the way things are done at all in your area. If you are a member of APHA, there is definitely help to be found in the public health nursing section. https://www.apha.org/apha-communities/member-sections/public-health-nursing Good luck in your new role!

I have no info on any midwifery education programs on whether or not they teach it, but I would encourage any student nurse (or student nurse midwife or student nurse practitioner) who is interested in learning more about abortion care to look at the Nurses for Sexual and Reproductive Health Abortion Care Elective to see if you can get it delivered on your campus. edit to add link: http://nsrh.org/Abortion-Care-Education-(ACE)

If so it is not a rumor I have heard. Where is your source?

Hi Capybara123! You can work with sexual health in a public health capacity. Many local county or regional health departments offer STD testing and treatment services, and nurses usually work within or manage those programs. Depending where you are, the local health department may also do birth control services through Title X funding, or more robust HIV testing, referral, or treatment as well. This is basically the core of my job function, along with immunizations, communicable disease control, and community engagement. Feel free to message me if you'd like to continue the conversation.

I wanted to be certified in public health nursing with the APHN-BC credential, but the ANCC retired it before I was eligible to apply. There is no other nursing-specific public health certification credential at this time and nor does ANCC seem to have any intention of creating one, so I don't know that I'll ever get to know how having the certification would feel. #StillBitter

I am finishing my MPH this month!

As a nurse who works at a local health department and often sees these kiddos with letters from their school nurses for immunization compliance... THANK YOU for all the amazing work you do to help keep your school populations safe from vaccine preventable diseases. You rock!

As an active member of a national public health nursing professional organization, I can tell you there is plenty being done by nurses in all areas of healthcare about climate change and healthy environments! More education in terms of a DNP/PhD is certainly something you'll have to make your own decisions on to see if it works for your life, but in the meantime, I would encourage you to think about joining the Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments! It's free to join and you get access to regular conference calls, work groups around various topics (climate change, food, safer chemicals, research, practice, policy, etc), ideas for taking actions in your own community with regards to health policy/environmental policy, and they have a free peer-reviewed textbook in electronic format on environmental health in nursing. I really can't say enough good things about ANHE. Did I mention they have free CEs too? Feel free to poke around their website here: ANHE - Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments

I am an aspiring MSF applicant as well, so I am hoping some others will jump in to provide us with answers to your questions.

Agree with above - as a suggestion, you might try calling your local public health department and let the receptionist know you are a nursing student with an assignment who would like to speak with a public health nurse. I work at a public health department and we get at least three calls like this a semester. We're happy to do it, and that would be more in line with the spirit of your assignment.

If you are working with children, it can help to give them some choice in the matter. They are getting the vaccine regardless, but letting them decide if they want to sit on their parent's lap or up on the exam table and which shoulder you use helps ease their anxiety some, I have found. It also helps to ask them to demonstrate how they blow out birthday candles, then practice together on the count of three, then when you give the shot to count to 3 and to poke on 3 as they are blowing out the pretend candles. I have also found that pinching the deltoid just a little (not to raise the muscle, but to provide a different sensation) helps them to feel my grip more than the needle going in. Using these techniques helps decrease discomfort for the children I immunize quite a bit. They also work with needlephobic teens and adults.

I think it would probably just be like a regular corrections nursing job then, but not having worked at such a place, I couldn't say. I'd encourage you to also reach out to the corrections nursing forum too.

Are you referring to a US Public Health Services Commissioned Corps posting in a correctional facility, or a job description via a county/local jurisdiction that is for a nurse in a corrections facility and has 'public health nurse' in the job title? I can't imagine that either of the above scenarios would be terribly different except the Commissioned Corps position would have the additional hoops to jump through that any federal employment might have.

I don't have much to add to the NP side of things since I am not one, but this recent case out of California where RNs were doing laser hair removal under the chirpractor's supervision rather than a physician supervision would sure make me leery of wanting to work with one in a professional capacity. San Francisco Bay Area Couple Charged with Practicing Medicine Without a License | The DOI Page