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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Beth Lamanna, WHNP, MPH, RN and Sonda Oppewal, PhD, RN. Public Health Nursing, The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, 5110 New Building, CB# Box 7460, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-7460, 919-843-4685, lamanna@email.unc.edu

Our service trip to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi provided students with an unforgettable opportunity to practice and mature their pre- professional skills. With leadership from two faculty members from the School of Nursing and the School of Public Health, 37 faculty, students, and community partners created an interdisciplinary academic & community partnership team for the service trip. We staffed four free clinics, conducted a door-to-door assessment for the Mississippi Department of Health, removed debris and helped with home repair over spring break, March 2006. This presentation highlights lessons learned during the trip's planning process including selecting an agency to partner with in MS, solidifying local interdisciplinary and community partnerships, budget development and fund raising, exploring professional and academic legal issues, recruiting participants, and “building” the team. Our group provided a total of 1,532 service hours (including 1,288 hours providing direct and indirect patient care). Patients were highly satisfied with the health services and our team assisted with quality improvement measures at the free clinics. In addition to providing much needed service, our students specifically benefited from the opportunity to apply critical thinking skills to not only individual health issues but the larger context of community health care and health and social policies that impact the health of Americans. The academic partnership between the Schools of Nursing and Public Health fostered a greater appreciation for each discipline's unique contributions to disaster response.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of this session, the participant will be able to

• Discuss useful resources to help identify potential partners for interdisciplinary academic/community service trips.
• List key action steps to help plan an interdisciplinary academic/community service trip.
• Articulate strategies to deal with challenges associated with planning and implementing an academic/community service trip.
• Describe strategies to strengthen interdisciplinary service learning opportunities and to enhance critical thinking skills when responding to disasters.

Keywords: Disasters, Health Service

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No