TAMIU Student Nurses Share in Service for Operation Lone Star
Texas A&M International University (TAMIU) student nurses got a hands-on experience in community and mass emergency event nursing by volunteering services during the recent Operation Lone Star (OLS) at United South High School.
Some 30 members of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences’ Dr. F. M. Canseco School of Nursing’s Student Nurses Association (SNA) volunteered throughout the week-long event. Faculty members Julieta Vicharelli and Lisa Heard helped supervise students throughout the event.
OLS is a military health training exercise that focuses on the mass provision of health care in emergency response. It provides immunizations, medical and dental care, physicals, assessment for blood pressure, diabetes, hearing and vision to all those attending the event.
TAMIU SNA members were able to assist service providers by obtaining patient medical histories, providing translation services for service providers and assisting in triage -- a way to determine the urgency and order of care to be provided in situations with large numbers of patients.
TAMIU interim dean of the College of Nursing and Health Sciences, Dr. Marivic Torregosa said that service opportunities like OLS, provide invaluable experiences that expand the College’s classroom learning.
“We frequently participate in such hands-on, real-time activities with our students because they provide a real-world example of public health practice, patient-provider interaction and, in the case of OLS, a look at how public health can be logistically provided in emergency response events. These are invaluable experiences which help our students to grow and apply their classroom and training insights to actual lived experiences,” Dr. Torregosa explained.
“Our students’ response was overwhelmingly positive and for many, participating in this event only deepened their resolve and commitment to their chosen profession. All told, our members of the SNA, under the mentorship of Professor Angie Michelangeli, were able to generate some 120 service hours. This was added to 2,400 volunteer hours that the SNA already completed over the summer. This will be counted towards our overall TAMIU 50th Anniversary Service Challenge which seeks to see students generate 50,000 service hours to our community over this Anniversary year, 2019-2020,” Torregosa noted.
At the undergraduate level, the Canseco School of Nursing offers a Bachelor of Science in Nursing and a completely online Registered Nurse to Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
At the graduate level, the Canseco School offers a Master of Science in Nursing, Family Nurse Practitioner program (MSN-FNP) and a Master of Science in Nursing Administration (MSN-NADM) focused on the critical role of Nursing in Health Care Management. It also offers a Baccalaureate program.
TAMIU’s graduate programs are fully accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing. The School also offers a three-year part-time option for those students who must work full-time while attending school. Graduates must pass their national Certification Board exam.
The Canseco School has also added a certificate nursing program focused on addressing the severe shortage of Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioners in South Texas in a collaboration with UT Health San Antonio.
Both BSN and MSN programs have full accreditation from the Texas Board of Nursing.
Fall 2019 classes at TAMIU begin Tuesday, Aug. 27.
To explore TAMIU’s undergraduate or graduate nursing programs, please contact academic advisor Anna Buentello at 956.326.3110 or email nursing@tamiu.edu. Information is also available online at http://www.tamiu.edu/cson/index.shtml
To learn about the University’s year-long 50th Anniversary Celebration, please visit the dedicated web site at https://www.tamiu.edu/50/
For more on the University’s story, visit tamiu.edu, email prmis@tamiu.edu or call the University’s Office of Public Relations, Marketing and Information Services at 956.326.2180.
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