Practicum Reflection

Penina Pierre

Delaware Technical and community College

RN to BSN Nursing Program

NUR 320: Population and Community Health

Instructor: Ms. Pini

Date: 11/26/2023
My practicum experiences added mor enthusiasms to attain my objectives in my nursing career. Nursing

doesn’t stay at the bed side but going further to reach the population in the community to help them

with preventive care, to advocate for those that cannot talk for themselves, to collaborate with the

healthcare disciplines to enhance the population well-beings. I learned that my population could

become a healthy community with education and support of the public nurses. When they learn how to

live a healthy lifestyle the health disparities will diminish. In the TB clinic it is mostly the minorities

populations that are seen in the clinic. Most of them have latent TB and are treated for it. Most of them

are Spanish speaking patients, Haitians and Vietnamese. Those people needed a translator to translate

during consultation and they are helped with housing and food security. Those people needed

information on where to go to get help. Public nurses not only look for resources but also go buy

groceries and deliver to patient’s home. They also took patients to their doctor’s appointments. I learned

a lot about the role of public nurses. They work to help the communities stay in good health. The public

nurse not only advocate for the communities but also give their personal breaktime to go shopping for

those without a means of transportation. During my practicum I saw nurses skip their breaks time to go

either shopping or picking up patients that had no transportation. Poverty in this community is one of

the barriers that causes the health disparities. It is evident that the lack of information on how to get

help increases this community health disparities. Community nurses’ duties are vaster than the other

areas of the nursing profession. It is important to assess for the social determinants in my current

nursing practice. Most of the time patients are discharged but have nowhere to go. When knowing

patient social determinants that will determine what type of help that the patients need.