Martha Scheckel, PhD, RN, recently published an op-ed in the Pioneer Press about how increasing the number of community and public health nurses benefits all nurses and the communities they serve. Scheckel is founding director and professor at the University of St. Thomas Susan S. Morrison School of Nursing.
From the op-ed: If we’ve learned nothing else from the pandemic, it’s been made clear that we must find ways to guard against future situations where nurses and other medical professionals become overwhelmed with crushing influxes of patients in hospital corridors. Health problems that can overwhelm medical professionals in emergency rooms don’t start in hospitals – they start in communities.
In order to help address some of the challenges hospital nurses are facing, we should also look upstream to where nurses in the community can make a difference in the overall health of our population.
