Student nurses learn by
doing at College Health Fair

 

All systems go

First year General Nursing students
Angie Boileau, Nikki Ballantyne and
Lyn Init take the blood pressure of a
1996 Health Fair participant.

General Nursing’s Marilyn Rainbow
and Pauline Dunn are extremely proud of
their first-year students.

They have a right to be: the combined
effort of their Semester I students in
Collaborative Nursing produced the first-
ever Douglas College Health Fair, a
healthy hit by all accounts.

The students chose a significant health
issue within the College community and
then developed educational displays to
practice spreading the word. The
concourse was filled with charts, videos
and live demonstrations on topics that
ranged from the risks of smoking to
diabetes, heart disease and prenatal care.

“Tt was an opportunity for the students
to create their own learning experience in
health promotion,” says Rainbow. ‘‘Not
only for the research they undertook, but
for the skills in group process and
communication they learned along the
way,” Dunn adds.

The students agree. For Lucy Pinto,
whose group focused on diabetes, the Fair
was a chance to learn how to interact
“with the public and our future patients.”
She’s enthusiastic about the
communication techniques she was able
to practice. “Diabetes will become more and more prevalent in Canada as the baby-boom
generation ages,” she says. “And it’s important to reach out to the over one million people
in Canada who don’t know they have it.”

Antonio Ortiz, whose group organized the anti-smoking table, appreciated the interest
shown in the displays: “Even though we’ re just starting out as nurses, people were really
willing to listen to us.” He noticed a good number of College employees and students
checking out the diseased lung slides before picking up a ; how to quit’ brochure.

Heather Knowles, whose group took on prenatal care, noticed that the preventative
health topics of nutrition and exercise came up in almost every display. “People are playing
more of a role in their own health,” Rainbow confirms. “And that growing interest in self-
empowerment was reflected in the students’ work.”

Rainbow, Dunn, and fellow instructor Linda Pickthall also reflect the theme of self-
empowerment in their teaching. “The Fair was an example of students using learning
activities to develop knowledge of nursing and local resources, instead of just being
lectured at,’ Rainbow says. “It’s a satisfying and caring way to teach. We hope it’s just as
positive a way to learn.” Jf

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