Service Learning
Red Bird
Contact Person: Dr. Bonnie Callen
For seven years, the College of Nursing has partnered with the Red Bird Mission in Beverly, Kentucky. Students have the opportunity to have a week-long an Appalachian emersion experience. Red Bird is a clinic and work camp that accommodates men, women and youth of all ages who come to the mission to volunteer in this impoverished area of southern Kentucky.
Our nursing students provide health education at the local K through 12 school, the senior center and in the clinic. In the clinic, the students shadow a nurse practitioner and learn about prevalent chronic diseases. They make home visits with the public health nurse, the home care aides and the Red Bird doctors. They also assist with a Meals on Wheels route to see where older adults live and how they live.
Red Bird is in close proximity to the Frontier Nursing Service (FNS), which has served as a model of rural health care delivery for the United States and the rest of the world. Our students are able to visit the home of Mary Breckenridge, who established the FNS in 1925 to provide professional health care in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Kentucky. This visit enables the students to see where she practiced nursing and midwifery, often traveling on horseback to see her patients, in an area that to date still has no cell phone reception.
The Red Bird experience is regularly the most requested community clinical site for our undergraduate students.
http://www.rbmission.org/
Health Fairs
Contact Person: Mary Sue Hodges
HealthBeat is an annual health fair that provides a great opportunity for the university community to participate in important health screenings and receive additional informative materials. The College of Nursing co-sponsors this event each year.
Participants are able to obtain information on weight management, diabetes, breast health, oral cancer, organ donor registry and sign-up, HIV/AIDS education, student health education and services, drug and alcohol abuse, heart health and stroke risk, primary care, adult immunizations, ER trauma, pharmacogenetics, genetic counseling and genetic testing, and general health.
In addition to the information and exhibition booths, the following screenings are provided:
Oral and dental health screening- Carotid Artery screening
- Skin cancer/age progression screening
- Blood pressure screening
- Bone density screening
- Body Mass Index screening
- CO2/Pulse Ox screening
- Vision screening
- Hearing testing
- Blood typing
- HIV/AIDS testing
- Sickle Cell and other hemoglobinopathy testing
The College of Nursing also participates in health fairs across the community. In recent years, students and faculty have worked with the All about Women event, the Healthy Living Expo, Heart Wise, and the 100 Black Men Health Fair.
Faith Community Nursing
Contact Person: Mary Sue Hodges
Faith based nurses provide health promotion and disease prevention to congregations. They focus on the importance of body, mind and spirit for good health. Parish nurses make home visits to parishioners to assist them with their needs. The College of Nursing has partnered with Wallace Memorial Baptist church in Knoxville for our students to observe the role of the parish nurse.
Our students visit with older congregates who need assessments or assistance in a variety of areas. Pairs of students visit with homebound elderly identified by the parish nurse, administer health questionnaires, educate on health and safety issues, and assist clients with daily tasks. Since the students are able to visit with the same client each week, they are able to learn about the member as a person, not just as a patient. “Real friendships develop between the client and student caregiver,” Hodges said. “The clients truly look forward to the students’ visits. The students gain a great sense of pride. They learn that all nursing is not only physically doing something, but listening is a very important part as well.”
As a part of this experience, students complete a teaching project that assists the client in his or her health care needs. Past projects have included oxygen safety in the home, medication instruction, and patient information regarding various health problems. The students also spend time researching prices and availability of home health care products. Through these experiences, many students truly realize for the first time the challenges facing the elderly.
http://www.wmbc.net/templates/cuswallace/default.asp?id=31704
Office on Aging
Contact Person: Dr. Bonnie Callen
The College of Nursing has enjoyed a long-standing partnership with the Office on Aging and their Project LIVE program. “LIVE” stands for Living Independently through Volunteer Efforts. Case managers help older adults who are at or near the poverty line maintain their independence by assisting with everything from home safety items to minor home repairs. In addition to the case manager visits, students in the nursing program will visit some of these older adults who can benefit in many ways from weekly visits over six weeks. Our students conduct home safety assessments, medication assessments, as well as other assessments based on individual needs (such as depression, dementia or falls risk). They provide health education and much needed socialization for these isolated older adults. The students review medications to be sure that the older adults they are visiting know what they are taking. Our students are able to provide more of a health assessment than the case managers are able to do, and more than 20 students are placed with the Office on Aging each spring semester.
Remote Area Medical (RAM)
Contact Person: Dr. Bonnie Callen
Remote Area Medical (RAM) a not-for profit organization based in Knoxville that provides medical, dental and optometry clinics throughout eastern Tennessee for those who are uninsured or underinsured. RAM clinics held throughout the year, and students in our RN to BSN program, as well as faculty, assist in the delivery of healthcare services. The students conduct thorough health histories, take blood pressures and fill out the screening paperwork required before a doctor or dentist can be seen. In more remote areas, our students have assisted in pulling teeth and in optometry services. Since the RAM clinics are free, people often wait all night to see a doctor, dentist or get a pair of glasses.
Teaching Programs
Contact Us
College of Nursing
1200
Volunteer Blvd,
Knoxville, TN 37996
Phone: (865) 974-4151
Fax: (865) 974-3569
