Community health nursing is a field of nursing that is a blend of primary health care and nursing practice with public health nursing. I understand that the purpose of our community clinical is to learn what community nurses do. So far my clinical professor has lectured us about the roles of a community nurse and we have looked at the charts of the patients we were assigned.

One experience that stood out in my community clinical was when my professor had us walk around the community of the CNR facility.  At the end of our first clinical, we all walked a few blocks around the CNR building. My professor pointed out various stores and buildings. He told us that the stores and buildings provided information about the community. My professor pointed out this apartment building that used to be a hospital and a school for nursing. On the apartment building it still had engravings that said, “training school for nursing”.  Just from seeing the terminology that was used, I could tell that was a really old nursing school. No nursing program these days claims to be “training” you.  That building to me provided a piece of history about the neighborhood.

Another thing my professor pointed out was a pet food store.  The pet food store told us that the residents in the community must have a decent amount of money. Pet food is expensive. It can be more costly than buying food for humans.

I was grateful that my professor showed us around our clinical’s neighborhood. It provided me with information on the community.  As a community health nurse it is important to know about the community that your patient’s reside in. When you are informed about your patient’s community, it allows you to know what resources are available for your patient.  These resources can include transportation, stores, service centers and health care providers.

I am doing my community clinical at CNR.  CNR is a senior day center.  CNR offers daily activities for the elderly.  Before I got to interact with my patient, my professor showed us a video on dementia   This week in my community clinical I had my first interaction with my patient.

My patient arrived late. While I was awaiting the arrival of my patient, I was assisting the staff in taking orders for the patients’ breakfast, as well as interacting with patients.  The staff wrote down the patients’ orders on a list that had all the patients’ names.  I noticed a patterned with the patients I interacted with.  For some reason a lot of the women loved to touch my sweater. One lady was continuously touching my sweater and arm, while she was laughing. She was unable to say coherent words. The only phrase she was able to say was, “I love you”. I think that this woman was in the later stages of dementia.  Her whole vocabulary was almost depleted and she was unable to regulate her emotions, which was shown with her inappropriate laughter.  When I went to a different table another lady kept touching my sweater and was kissing my arm. She gave me her glove to touch.  When I tired to leave the table, she held onto my arm. I just reassured her that I would come back to see her lady.   After I said that, she felt comfortable letting me go.  I did not get to interact with my patient much because she arrived right before I had to leave.