Tropical Medicine & Nursing?

[MaleRN2B]

At 40 I've finally decided that I'm going to quit my job in 6 months and pursue an accelerated BSN. I've scheduled a visit at the state school about 30 miles from home instead of the larger university here because the focus there is still on clinical practice from "Day 1" vs. a major focus on research at the local school 10 minutes away. The other program is also 16 months instead of 24.

This is a second career for me and I wasn't a great student of biology but I enjoyed it and didn't take the easy road of changing my major. I have a semester of prerequisite work to do and hopefully there I can demonstrate my commitment. Failure is NOT an option! I'm going to be a RN and hopefully a NP eventually.

What about nursing and tropical medicine? Are any of you regularly seeing diseases and/or parasites in patients from other countries or travelers to other countries? I'm just curious. I know that England has a program for tropical medicine but most of what I've read about immigrant and ethnic health care has been on the subject of cultural competence and sensitivity in Minority Nurse magazine.

I have always been fascinated with parasites. I had several myself - both internal and external - while living in the tropics! I had the good fortune of having a GP who had also lived and practiced in the same country where I had lived so he considered things that other doctors probably would not have looked for when I had minor health problems. I really appreciated that.