Excerpt from “Nursing in the Community: Learning, Giving, and Getting Something in Return,” from Columbia Nursing
Working in medically underserved communities heightens nursing students’ cultural awareness, notes Jennifer Dohrn, DNP, CNM, director, Office of Global Initiatives. It trains them to recognize the ways in which people’s backgrounds affect not only their health, but also their access to care and experience of the health care system. This training helps students understand why a pregnant woman from Senegal who has been raised in a culture where women help each other during childbirth, might avoid a U.S. hospital, where labor and delivery are “interventionalized” and “medicalized;” it teaches them to ask why an Arabic-speaking community with a high prevalence of diabetes has no linguistically appropriate literature on nutrition. “We’re training people to be nurses who will understand disparities,” says Dohrn, an assistant professor of community health. “You want someone to be able to look at a community and ask, ‘What are the priorities?’”
Development/Alumni Magazines
From Columbia Nursing
Fall 2014:
Nursing in the Community: Learning, Giving, and Getting Something in Return
Spring 2014:
Walter Bockting Explores Transgender Health on Its Own Terms
Spring 2016:
The Changing Role of Palliative Care in a New Era
From Chironian, The magazine of New York Medical College
Summer/Fall 2015:
Rebecca McAteer, M.D. ’08, Brings Healing to Nepal, Before and After the Earthquake
2017:
NYMC Students Get Hands-On Training in Honduras with Global Brigades
Websites
From Columbia University College of Dental Medicine
Summer 2016:
Giving Children New Reasons to Smile
From Weill Cornell Medicine Newsroom:
Spring 2016:
Electronic Cigarettes Age Restrictions May Drive Teens to Traditional Cigarettes
Physician Communication Needed to Promote Informed Decision-Making for Patients with Advanced Cancer
Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs May Prevent Opioid Overdoses
Fall 2016:
Study Underscores Need to Screen Pediatric Cancer Patients for Delirium
Newsletters
From Viewpoint, Columbia University Medical Center, Department of Ophthalmology