Choosing to serve your community and population is the dedication of the application of nursing. In establishing a connection to the people who live and work around you, you become entwined in their successful outcome both as individuals and community. Since transitioning to the role of a school-based nurse, I’ve learned that the work I do is essential. By investing in the health and wellness of the children in the community I serve, ensuring they are healthy in mind, body, and spirit is serving a vested interest in the community and population where I live. When I consider the perspective my Professional Roles and Values task gave me in considering community health, it is during that project that I realized that as a school nurse, I truly am a community health nurse. The saying goes “no man is an island,” and for me as a practitioner not to consider a child’s home, friends, and school success or failure in the care planning would be failing them. As I continue professionally, it is the impact I can make on individual students and their community that excites me the most.

The biggest impact WGU’s program has had on me is the learning I’ve done with community and population health. While I’ve always been intrigued by the individual’s surroundings and social dynamics and their effect on health, the community health work I’ve done here has awakened another side of nursing to me. To consider the cultural, social, and societal structures we have in place that affects a person’s health continuum has helped me expand my definition of what nursing is. Embracing your population’s community, while complex, helps to align the individual’s paradigm with your interventions.

My submission from Community Health and Population Focused Nursing, C228 Task 1, shows my ability to focus application of community health in my nursing practice. The paper articulates my ability to identify population risk factors utilizing the tools of epidemiology, demographics, statistical information, and community assessments and synthesize that data into identifying population health problem areas. By focusing on health disparities, we are able to make nursing diagnoses for our populations and by focusing on cultural dynamics, make our interventions applicable and sensitive to those populations.

This artifact also supports my definition of community and population health and what it means. In thoroughly reviewing the known demographic information through a comprehensive assessment, I was able to show a connection to the people who work and live within this simulated city. By tailoring my interventions to that population, I have shown an ability to demonstrate application of theory to the community with which I am working whether hypothetical or real.

During my simulated assessment of Sentinel City, I was able to practice performing a community assessment for the field experience. By analyzing demographic information and applying it, I assimilated this information. In my own community, I discovered through collecting county medical survey information, a distinct predisposition to mental health issues such as anxiety and depression. In working in my community, I’ve discovered that access is often difficult because of the rural nature of Maine. I have discovered that many schools have become primary places of intervention with school based counselors to support youth with mental health needs.

The American Museum of Natural History certificate, Genetics, Genomics, Genethics in Nursing shows my ability to understand how our internal genetic “code” can affect our overall health outcomes. Moving forward as a school nurse, I will carry this information with me when considering not only my individual patient’s predispositions, but also a broader population focused understanding of genetics and genethics as I continue to grow as a professional nurse.