Today was a well-spent day at Birmingham City University South Campus! We had a bunch of interesting presentations today that talked about a lot of new information.
One of the things that was important that stood out was Alicia Lashley’s presentation on public health. She talked about how important public interventions were to prevent health outbreaks and further infections in public communities. There were examples like seat belt laws, vaccinations, and respiratory laws like Ulez (in the UK) that were put in place to reduce air pollution in urban areas. Public health interventions are important because they can help identify conditions early and lead to cost savings as costly diseases are caught early and prevent expensive treatments. In addition, these interventions keep people out of the hospital. By reducing the number of patients in the hospital, there is less of a burden on the nurses and less overwhelming for the hospital and its equipment.
We also learned about the social gradient and how, if you have more favorable circumstances, you are more likely to have better health and a longer life expectancy. These circumstances refer to the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH). Factors like income, housing, level of education, employment, ethnicity, and where you live all contribute to this social gradient. The big takeaway is that inequalities in the SDOH happen even in high-income, first-world countries like the US and the UK. So, no matter how developed these countries might be, there are always factors and different circumstances that people experience that may put them in situations of disparity. One main example would be low levels of education and how that can lead to health disparities. If individuals don’t have the right level of education, they may not be able to get a good job, which might not pay them well. With low levels of income, people won’t be able to get a safe house in a good neighborhood or have enough money to buy essential groceries and cleaning supplies to sustain good health.
As far as mental health nursing goes, Jonathan Gadsby talked about some of the main authors the students at BCU were learning from. The main author that stood out to me was Joanna Moncrieff, who says that we need to move to a drug-centered model, which basically means that we should acknowledge that drugs are brain-altering drugs and not just medicine that would fix everything right away. This drug-centered model allows power to be given back to the person as we look at a more holistic approach to treating mental health disorders, without just simply giving medicine and thinking that the patient is all better. It was also really great to hear from student nurses Takisha and Haley, who had a lot of good insight into mental health nursing as well.
Overall, I think the main takeaway I got from today was to really acknowledge and be empathetic as a nurse when caring for your patients. You may not know the circumstances that a patient might be facing on the outside regarding their life, but the one thing you can do as a nurse is to be attentive and understand what their situation might be, and just make them feel comfortable. Our goal is to treat the person and not the disease, so being mindful of the patients’ feelings and their circumstances is really important!
