The University of Cincinnati College of Nursing: Educating Women in Need, an On Going Project

Women's Health Issues

2009-06-08T05:56:00.000-07:00

Hi, it's Bethany. Jessica and I were responsible for working on the Women's Health portion of the Capstone project. We covered such topics as; Pregnancy signs & symptoms, Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs), Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS), Pap smears, and Breast Self Exams (BSE). I presented at the Drop Inn Center and Jessica presented at the Talbert House. Many of the women at the Drop Inn Center were not aware of the importance of BSE and how often they should be completed. The ideal time for completing the MONTHLY BSE is 1-2 days after your menstrual period. The poster presentation was a great assest to our open forum setting. Many of the women displayed interest in the posters and several even asked if our group was leaving the posters there at the center for them to refer to. A resource brochure with local Cincinnati Area Women's Resources was available for the women to take home.

Pictures from Drop-In Center

2009-06-05T11:46:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone! These are pictures from our presentation at the drop-in center! We brought tons of snacks and the staff supplied some too.

STI information

2009-06-05T11:29:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, I (Tristyn) worked with Alyssa on the Sexually Transmitted Infection portion of the project. We decided to focus on the five STI's that we felt were most common in the Cincinnati area, Human Papilloma Virus, Herpes, HIV/AIDS, Chlamydia, and Syphilis. We picked these based on research and what we had seen in our own experiences working in Cincinnati hospitals. I presented at the local in Drop-In Center, and Alyssa took the project to the Talbert House. The presentation at the drop-in center went GREAT! There were 10-15 women present, and each of them had tons of questions (including the staff). I thought our presentation was really effective, and they kept asking us when we could come back!

Presenting at the drop-in center was a great way to reach our population, and due to their large amount of questions it was clear that this type of education is truly needed. After presenting I came up with a few suggestions for students who might continue to do this project.

1. Make sure that you include hepatitis on your poster, there were tons of questions about

this.

2. Include information in your presentation about blood pressure.

3. Include information in your presentation about diabetes.

It is my hope that future seniors at the University of Cincinnati will continue this project. It was an extremely rewarding experience, and very valuable teaching for the population.

Senior Capstone Project

2009-06-01T04:35:00.000-07:00

Welcome!

We are a group of senior nursing students at the University College of Nursing. Our "group" is made up of Katie, Samantha, Tristyn, Emily, Bethanny, Jessica, and Alyssa. Let me explain how this blog came into existance...

We were thrilled to come to the final chapter of our college careers and the light at the end of the tunnel so to speek---SPRING QUARTER of our senior year! With the papers, test, projects, and classes, we were faced with one more major project that we would have to overcome in order to put on our cap and gowns. This class is known as "Capstone", and is a compilation of 4 years of nursing process, planning, implementation, and massive amounts of group work. We were given this challenge, to create a project that combines what we have learned as nurses and disseminate it locally, nationally, and globally. After my group members and I brainstormed for a while, we talked about issues that we find prevalent in our area of Cincinnati. We also talked about which population we feel a desire to help, and who could really benefit most from this project.

What we came up with is an accumulation of our desire to reach out to others, to educate on issues that we see around our city on a daily basis, and to create something that can be worked with and continued on through the hands of other future nurses.

So there you have it. "Educating Women in Need" was born. Our project focuses on going out into the community and educating women at places like The Drop Inn Center and The Talbert House. We chose several issues that we wanted to talk to them about, such as women's sexual health, STIs, drug abuse and rehabilitation, and smoking cessation.

We decided to create pamphlets with resources for Cincinnati women which contained everything from where to get free condoms, to where you can go for a health check up, to what numbers to call if you think you're ready to stop smoking.

We spent weeks gathering information and learning about our target population. We chose these areas of the city to implement our project in because we know they may be lacking in health insurance, education, ability to obtain resources, etc.

What you will read here is the steps that we took to put this project together, the resources we used, and the surprisingly successful outcomes we had when finally implementing our project.