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Show X. y? ' . ' - f : 'Vj -L::::::r L;f f a; ;- i '. a ; ; Primary Care Nursing-Senior student Diane Forster of the University of Utah College of Nursing explains I ------ hemoglobin test to a client at a health screening clinic. If U RS I li G The colle6e operates the clinic under a contract with the Opportunities Industrialization Center, a manpower training program. This is one of four primary care clinics staffed by faculty and students from the college who are serving to define the role nurses can play in front-line health care. --A young man wants to become a truck driver but can't see well enough to pass his driver's test and has no money for glasses. --A VETERAN with a history his-tory of mental illness has periodic delusions that prevent him from eating or leaving home to seek help. -An elderly resident of a federal housing project feels lonely and isolated and doesn't know where to turn for help. IN THE Salt Lake Valley, these people are among hundreds now finding help in clinics run by nurses from the University of Utah. Faculty and students from the College of Nursing staff "four primary care clinics. , Each has a distinct purpose . and clientele, but all are serving to define the role nurses can play in frontline health care and helping to involve in-volve nursing students in these roles. THE YOUNG man with ambitions of becoming a truck driver was a trainee at a federally funded manpower training program called Opportunities Op-portunities Industrialization Center (OIC). Like many of the OIC trainees, health and fitness problems were one of the main causes for his unemployment. In the fall of 1975, the OIC contracted with the college to provide a health screening clinic for its trainees in the Nettie Gregory Center on Eighth West and South Temple. Margaret Adamson, assistant professor of nursing and director ot the clinic, says about 125 trainees have been seen at the clinic so far. "WE CARRY out total health assessments, including health histories and physical examinations. When we discover dis-cover special health problems we refer the clients to physicians, dentists, eye doctors doc-tors and specialist clinics. "Usually our clients are people who have never had the money or the opportunity to learn to use the health care system. So we have to make appointments for them and accompany them. "WE HAD to take the young man who wanted to be a truck driver to the eye doctor, help him apply for public funds to pay for glasses, then get him to the driver's license exam. "Our clients are now coming com-ing back to ask us for health advice, and we have taught some classes on dental care, skin care, nutrition and personal per-sonal hygiene," Adamson says. The clinic is served each session by faculty and nursing nurs-ing students at various stages in their professional education. educa-tion. SEVERAL blocks south in the old Community Church building on Ninth West and Fourth South, nurses are helping to provide an alternative alter-native to hospitalization for a population of chronically mentally-ill veterans, most of them between 50 and 60 years of age. The building houses the Veterans Administration Hospital (VA) Day Treatment Program. Since 1974, students in psychosocial nursing have been helping to provide individual and group counseling and support for center patients. "BUT THE clients have so many physical illnesses as well as chronic mental problems that it reemphasizes the need to look at the total person," says June Goodson, associate professor and director of the educational program. "Last spring in collaboration collabora-tion with the multidis-ciplinary multidis-ciplinary team at the Day Treatment Program and key administrative staff at the VA, we opened a Health Maintenance and Promotion Clinic and brought in students from nursing management and community health classes." THE CLINIC offers the veterans general health assessments, as-sessments, health education, blood pressure checks, diet advice, foot care and other health maintenance and counseling services and provides quick referral to the medical services at the VA. "Many of these people are so lonely and isolated that much personal followup and support is needed," Goodson says. "The idea that someone cares enough to check on them really makes a difference." - - THE THREE nursing management students who are coordinating and managing manag-ing the clinic this quarter are developing health teaching packets for use by future students. In collaboration with the VA, the College of Nursing is now seeking funds to extend the service to the other clients in the VA mental health services, ser-vices, which includes about 1,000 clients. FURTHER south at a federal high-rise housing project for the elderly, U of U nurses have been participating participat-ing since November in a new multidisciplinary health screening project. The project evolved from two years of experience in operating a screening clinic at Friendship Manor, another elderly housing project. "Our goal is to help the well and independent elderly stay that way," says Joan Uhl, an instructor who directs the college's involvement in the Health Screening Center at 1992 South Second East. IT IS operated by the Rocky Mountain Gerontology Center and the College of Nursing. The health team includes faculty and students in nursing, nurs-ing, pharmacy, social work, recreation therapy, physical therapy and nutrition trom U of U, Utah State and Brigham Young University. "The center is open two half-days a week," Uhl says. "A client is usually seen first by a community health nurse. IF THE person is depressed and lonely, the nurse may check for signs of physical problems, and then refer the client to a physician, a psychosocial nurse or social worker for counseling, or to a recreation therapist to get the individual involved in arts and crafts or other activities. "We guard against over-referral over-referral and shuffling a client around to too many people, and we do a lot of careful followup." OVER 40 senior citizens living in the area have been coming to each session since the free clinic opened. This spring the nurses plan to begin calling on neighborhood shut-ins and handicapped elderly el-derly people. Another service for the elderly el-derly is being provided by the college in Tooele, where nursing students and a faculty member hold clinics twice a month at the senior citizens' center. "MEMBERS of the Tooele County Council on Aging expressed the need for some screening services for the el derly," says Mildred Burt, an instructor and director erf the clinic. The clinic began a yen ago under the sponsorship i the aging council, the health department and the college." The nurses see 40 to j clients at each session and ' teach health education classes such as nutrition, assertion as-sertion and breast sell examination. THE SCREENING include; such things as blood pressure checks, urine and hemoglobin tests and physical assess ments, Burt says. A clinica: pharmacist provides media tions screening and cour-seling. cour-seling. "Many elderly people don' want to bother their doctoi with something that seems like a minor symptom complaint," she adds. M0u: i referrals may send many if the doctor who would not haw gone until they were serious; ill." |