Beth F. Lamanna, RN, WHNP, MPH, clinical assistant professor, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill School of Nursing, chair, Public Health Nursing Section of the American Public Health Association
Q: When did you decide to pursue nursing as a career and why?
A. When I was 16 years old, I attended Case Western Reserve University to pursue a five-year nursing program. After a semester, I switched my major and earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. Still having the heart to pursue nursing, I returned to Cornell University School of Nursing to earn a Bachelor of Science in nursing. I believe my interest in public health benefited from my liberal arts education.
Q: What inspired you to become a public health nurse and how have you influenced or educated your community?
A. My strength lies in my ability to understand the social determinants of health and health’s impact on a community. Both of my parents were social anthropologists, so I understand the importance of individuals helping shape and define public health. After earning a master’s degree in public health nursing, I wanted to raise awareness of environmental health injustice with a concentration in lead testing.
Q: What advice would you offer to nurses interested in becoming a public health nurse?
A. Experience in community organizations and an appreciation for the dynamics of communities. A public health nurse can be a community leader if they focus on health concerns pertinent to the community. Since the nursing profession is very respected and trusted, public health nurses need to advocate on behalf of their communities for system and policy change.
Q. How has nursing impacted your life?
A. Public health nursing allows me to enlighten future nurses as an undergraduate faculty member, and be a health leader for my community. As a public health nurse, I have been given the opportunity to serve as the health policy fellow for the North Carolina Center for Nursing and chair of the Public Health Nursing Section of the APHA. Those positions have permitted me to promote system and policy change.
Public Health Nurses Care for a Community
When most nurses are focused on caring for a handful of individual patients, public health nurses are caring for an entire community. Through education, these nurses improve health and safety and increase access to care in the communities they serve.
Public health nurses often work for government agencies, non-profit groups, community health centers and other organizations that aim to improve health at a community level. The day-to-day tasks can vary, depending on the agency for which a nurse works. Some nurses travel to various communities all over the globe to help improve the health of individuals who have poor access to healthcare, while others work in their own community at the local health center.
“The key to being a successful public health nurse is being able to synthesize all available resources – including people as resources – when working within a community,” said Rita Lourie, RN, MSN, MPH, consultant, Department of Nursing at Temple University and faculty member, Thomas Edison State College.
Public health nurses follow similar educational requirements for other nurse specialties. They must earn a bachelor’s degree in nursing and become a registered nurse by passing the national NCLEX-RN exam. Certain management positions may require a graduate degree as well.
Those interested in the specialty can get practice by volunteering with a community group, home health provider or hospice organization. For those more interested in the policy side of the specialty, working with a health advocacy group is a good way to learn about public health issues.
“The pace tends to be much slower day to day compared to working in a hospital setting,” said Lourie. “Mable Morris, a now deceased public health nurse, put it well when she said, 'change in a critical care unit of a hospital takes seconds, but change in a community takes a decade!'”
For more insight into the different avenues available in public health nursing, visit Lourie’s public health nursing channel on YouTube. The channel contains more than 50 videos revealing the unique and inspiring faces of public health nursing.
For more information on a career in public health nursing, visit www.discovernursing.com.
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