So what *can* I do?

[MNC_RN]

Quarterly, as part of Families Moving Forward outreach, my church houses and feeds homless families. I would like to offer my services as an RN during these times to do health screenings and health counciling for these families that have extremely limited access to healthcare.

But what, exactly, can I do? It's not like I can prescribe medications or order tests. Sure, I can take blood pressures and listen to hearts and lungs, but what then? They have no primary care giver to refer them to.

Obviously, I wouldn't practice outside of my legal scope of practice, but with such limited resources, what services am I able to provide?

Any advice would be helpful!

[Moogie]

Please come over to the Parish Nurse forum! There are stickies that will give you all sorts of information about what you can do for your faith community as an RN.

The activities in which you are interested are definitely within the scope of faith community nursing.

Hope to see you there!

[smurfynursey]

Hi

My school had a very strong public health rotation (3 semesters worth) so i def. understand some of what you are saying. We used to hold clinics at a low income apt. complex, the mens/womans shelter and do some stuff with the teens.

It is kind of hard...because you only have SO many resources. but there are plenty of other things that you can do that dont involve meds...we used to do blood pressure checks, tell them about healthy eating, do demos on how to cough (into the ac) test blood sugars, lice checks for the family shelter, ect. Tell them about non pharm ways to deal with things (hand washing, diet, excersize,ect)

hopethat helps!

I love public health!!!