September 19, 2007

Happy Birthday Jane! I hope that Jeff and Chrissy had a special day planned for you!

This morning was our last day of our Public Health Clinicals. We met the NMMU students and waited for the volunteers to come to the container. Sledge was asking if Laura and I had gotten his email that he sent us on Monday. We told him that we didn’t get it, and he was disappointed…but we rewrote the email addresses and hopefully it will be working for him now! We walked to our patient’s house and she was so happy to see us.

We left with a great feelings because she had achieved our outcomes and I really feel that I had a positive impact on her life and her health. I was very fortunate to have such an amazing group to work with, as well as being able to meet with the two families that I have been working with for the last month. Some groups were left with a feeling of helplessness or they felt like they didn’t develop a relationship with their patients, and what they taught was not welcomed by the patient. I feel that I did make a difference, even if it was a little step, whether it was going for a walk with a patient, listening to what they had to say, taking a blood pressure to someone who had never had it checked, or just being someone to talk to once a week. It was such a rewarding experience to have my patients show progress over the weeks. I wish that I could go there a month from now to see if they are continuing what we had taught them.

It was nice when we were leaving clinical all of the NMMU students came and gave us hugs and we all took pictures together! We exchanged email addresses and it was a nice farewell! When we came home from clinical we changed and made our way to the university to go to our Political Science class. I enjoy the information that we learn in the class, but two and a half hours of straight lecture can be very tiring! It is hard keeping your eyes open, and sometimes things are repeated over and over. I came home from class, made dinner, did a little homework, and watched a movie before going to bed, since I am ahead if all of my classes! What a great feeling!