Thursday, August 1, 2013

A Personal Note to Our Volunteers

Charlotte Covington, MSN, FNP Checking Ears

It has just slowed down enough for me to write this, but you all have been on my mind over the last week.  I am so grateful to each one of you for your willingness to serve both with your time and with your hearts.  It was truly a rewarding experience for me to see everyone at work and to help so many families in the Napier Community last week. In total we saw over 55 elementary school students. These are students who were in danger of missing their first weeks of school if  you had not help with their physicals and immunization counseling. I was blown away by the variety of volunteers we had. They ranged from Assistant Dean Terri Crutcher, DNP and Assistant Professor Susie Leming-Lee DNP with VUSN to a variety of nursing, pharmacy, and physician assistant students. I was also overwhelmed by the amount of practicing faculty from VUSN that were willing to come on their own time to volunteer their valuable service. Thank you to Anna Richmond, MSN, FNP and Charlotte Covington, MSN, FNP for coming and a special shout out to The Clinic at Mercury Courts' very own Aaron Scott, MSN, FNP and Lauren Lakvold, DNP, FNP

I want to say a special thank you to Roberta Bradley, MSN, FNP who not only volunteered to serve at the event for two days but also volunteered to coordinate our NP volunteers and provide her pediatric expertise. Also on the administrative side, I would like to thank Whitney Hanor for coordinating the small army of PA students from Trevecca's Physician Assistance Program who volunteered.  I was very happy to hear about you all coming from Brittany Jewett. Thank you Brittany  for connecting us.

Another two people I would like to mention are Bruce Abbott and Whitney Piper from Lipscomb College of Pharmacy. They were there with us everyday using their expertise to counsel families on immunizations and to help them arrange compliance with Metro Schools. That was a tough job and I greatly appreciated you both for doing this and for doing such a remarkable job. 

Whitney Piper (Lipscomb) providing patient education 
and immunization Counseling
I would also be remiss if I did not thank Bryn Evans with VUSN and Neesha Hetcher, VUSN student, for their, behind the scene work ordering, developing content for,  and preparing the folders used at the event. Preparing and stuffing folders ahead of time was a big job, but it really helped us stay organized and on track throughout the week. Thank you! Neesha also volunteered an additional full day on Friday and represented VUSN very well. 

And lastly, I would like to thank Dr Pilon and the Vanderbilt School of Nursing for their vision in caring for communities through interprofessional practice, and their ongoing dedication to The Clinic at Mercury Courts. Without them, we would not have this platform from which to help anyone. Thank you, exceedingly. 

Again, I am personally grateful to everyone that came out over the week. Beware, I now have your emails and will not hesitate to call on you again for your help. You all did a phenomenal job and I look forward to our next big outreach event! The next big thing will be Project Homeless Connect 2014 so stay posted!