Nursing Students Without Borders
Encyclopedia
Nursing Students Without Borders (NSWB) is an international, not-for-profit health care
-related non-governmental organization
created and lead by nursing
students in conjunction with relevant fields of science and humanitarian aid which focuses on improving living conditions where poverty exists both internationally and in the United States. Founded at the University of Virginia
in 1999, NSWB created a constitution that provides a self replicating method of leadership that has been adopted by many universities across the nation including Virginia Commonwealth University
, Purdue University
,University of Massachusetts
, Oregon Health & Science University
.Hartwick College
(Oneonta, NY
), Ohio State, Seattle Central Community College
, Messiah College
, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy Worcester Campus.
Since 1999 the different chapters of NSWB have traveled to El Salvador
, Belize
, Ghana
, Haiti
, Jamaica
, Russia
and in the impoverished areas surrounding the chapters. In order to remain free to promote health in politically tense zones around the world, NSWB remains independent of any political or governmental affiliation. All funds are donated to the non-profit body and no party within the group is paid to provide services.
. Each then proceeded from this idea to then, individually and as a whole, contribute and eventually formed a cohesive not-for-profit non-governmental international health care organization dubbed Nursing Students Without Borders.
The multidisciplinary health care team provides a key set of health maintenance support to chosen communities locally and internationally. This includes assessing public health emergencies
, endemic diseases and individual patients' needs, developing plans of care
, and providing continued care over a set period of time. The types of care that are provided include whole body hygiene
education, performing wound care, monitoring community diseases such as diabetes, hypertension
, sexually transmitted diseases, malaria
, malnutrition
, blood-borne disease
, influenza
as well as family planning
, maternal-child care
, assessing fetal heart tones and gestational age.
The founding chapter of Nursing Students Without Borders has undertaken a larger initiative to provide support for the construction of a Red Cross medical clinic in San Sebastián, San Vicente
, El Salvador. The UVA chapter also has the most extensive outreach program of all the NSWB chapters. Beginning in 2000 the El Salvador Initiative has traveled to San Sebastián 11 times; also beginning in 2000 the Migrant Health Initiative began provided local assistance to migrant camps in the Charlottesville, Virginia
area; between 2001 and 2002 the Russia Initiative completed two trips to Kysmolovsky, Russia; and in 2004 the South Africa Initiative worked with local clinics, provided health education on various topics and delivered needed supplies in The South Africa Initiative to a community in Thohoyandou
, Limpopo Province.
Health care
Health care is the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease, illness, injury, and other physical and mental impairments in humans. Health care is delivered by practitioners in medicine, chiropractic, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy, allied health, and other care providers...
-related non-governmental organization
Non-governmental organization
A non-governmental organization is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government. The term originated from the United Nations , and is normally used to refer to organizations that do not form part of the government and are...
created and lead by nursing
Nursing
Nursing is a healthcare profession focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life from conception to death....
students in conjunction with relevant fields of science and humanitarian aid which focuses on improving living conditions where poverty exists both internationally and in the United States. Founded at the University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...
in 1999, NSWB created a constitution that provides a self replicating method of leadership that has been adopted by many universities across the nation including Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University
Virginia Commonwealth University is a public university located in Richmond, Virginia. It comprises two campuses in the Downtown Richmond area, the product of a merger between the Richmond Professional Institute and the Medical College of Virginia in 1968...
, Purdue University
Purdue University
Purdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
,University of Massachusetts
University of Massachusetts
This article relates to the statewide university system. For the flagship campus often referred to as "UMass", see University of Massachusetts Amherst...
, Oregon Health & Science University
Oregon Health & Science University
Oregon Health & Science University is a public university in Oregon with a main campus, including two hospitals, in Portland and a smaller campus in Hillsboro...
.Hartwick College
Hartwick College
Hartwick College is a non-denominational, private, four-year liberal arts and sciences college located in Oneonta, New York, in the United States. The institution was founded as Hartwick Seminary in 1797 through the will of John Christopher Hartwick, and is now known as Hartwick College...
(Oneonta, NY
Oneonta, New York
Oneonta is a city in southern Otsego County, New York, USA. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, had a population of 13,901. Its nickname is "City of the Hills." While the word "oneonta" is of undetermined origin, it is popularly believed to mean "place of open rocks" in the Iroquois language...
), Ohio State, Seattle Central Community College
Seattle Central Community College
Seattle Central Community College is a community college located in Seattle, Washington, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. It is one of the three colleges which make up the Seattle Community College District...
, Messiah College
Messiah College
Messiah College is a private Christian college of the liberal arts and applied arts and sciences located in Grantham, Pennsylvania, near the capital city of Harrisburg...
, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy Worcester Campus.
Since 1999 the different chapters of NSWB have traveled to El Salvador
El Salvador
El Salvador or simply Salvador is the smallest and the most densely populated country in Central America. The country's capital city and largest city is San Salvador; Santa Ana and San Miguel are also important cultural and commercial centers in the country and in all of Central America...
, Belize
Belize
Belize is a constitutional monarchy and the northernmost country in Central America. Belize has a diverse society, comprising many cultures and languages. Even though Kriol and Spanish are spoken among the population, Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official...
, Ghana
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
, Haiti
Haiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
, Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
, Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
and in the impoverished areas surrounding the chapters. In order to remain free to promote health in politically tense zones around the world, NSWB remains independent of any political or governmental affiliation. All funds are donated to the non-profit body and no party within the group is paid to provide services.
History
Nursing Students Without Borders was conceived and founded in the summer of 1999 by then third-year University of Virginia (UVA) nursing school students. The conceptual framework that catalyzed the development of the first chapter of NSWB's development occurred in response to the limited exposure to the broad spectrum of health care needs in the U.S. and around the globe. While studying in the classrooms and clinical fields offered by the UVA Health System, Matthew Walden, Esther Miller, Ann Maushammer, Bridget Kuczkowski, Teri Woodard, Rosalind DeLisser and Bob Watkins all realized that this limited exposure also limited the potential excellence of a health care providerHealth care provider
A health care provider is an individual or an institution that provides preventive, curative, promotional or rehabilitative health care services in a systematic way to individuals, families or communities....
. Each then proceeded from this idea to then, individually and as a whole, contribute and eventually formed a cohesive not-for-profit non-governmental international health care organization dubbed Nursing Students Without Borders.
Mission and activities
The original mission statement of the founding chapter of Nursing Students Without Borders states: "The mission of the NSWB organization is to promote health empowerment through education, hands on patient care, building networks to access health care resources and distributing donated materials to third world communities while expanding the perspectives and experiences of nursing students."The multidisciplinary health care team provides a key set of health maintenance support to chosen communities locally and internationally. This includes assessing public health emergencies
Public health emergency (United States)
In the United States, a public health emergency declaration releases resources meant to handle an actual or potential public health crisis. Recent examples include incidents of flooding, constipation, and the 2009 H1N1 influenza outbreak...
, endemic diseases and individual patients' needs, developing plans of care
Nursing care plan
A nursing care plan outlines the nursing care to be provided to an individual/family/community. It is a set of actions the nurse will implement to resolve/support nursing diagnoses identified by nursing assessment. The creation of the plan is an intermediate stage of the nursing process...
, and providing continued care over a set period of time. The types of care that are provided include whole body hygiene
Hygiene
Hygiene refers to the set of practices perceived by a community to be associated with the preservation of health and healthy living. While in modern medical sciences there is a set of standards of hygiene recommended for different situations, what is considered hygienic or not can vary between...
education, performing wound care, monitoring community diseases such as diabetes, hypertension
Hypertension
Hypertension or high blood pressure is a cardiac chronic medical condition in which the systemic arterial blood pressure is elevated. What that means is that the heart is having to work harder than it should to pump the blood around the body. Blood pressure involves two measurements, systolic and...
, sexually transmitted diseases, malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
, malnutrition
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....
, blood-borne disease
Blood-borne disease
A blood-borne disease is one that can be spread through contamination by blood.The most common examples are HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and viral hemorrhagic fevers....
, influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
as well as family planning
Family planning
Family planning is the planning of when to have children, and the use of birth control and other techniques to implement such plans. Other techniques commonly used include sexuality education, prevention and management of sexually transmitted infections, pre-conception counseling and...
, maternal-child care
Maternal-child nursing
Maternal-child nursing refers to the combined nursing specialties of obstetrical nursing, pediatric nursing, and neonatal nursing....
, assessing fetal heart tones and gestational age.
The founding chapter of Nursing Students Without Borders has undertaken a larger initiative to provide support for the construction of a Red Cross medical clinic in San Sebastián, San Vicente
San Sebastián, San Vicente
San Sebastián is a municipality in the San Vicente department of El Salvador.-Church Of San Sebastián:It’s settled in the city of the same name, head of the district and municipality of San Sebastian 49 km away from San Salvador and at 660 meters above sea level...
, El Salvador. The UVA chapter also has the most extensive outreach program of all the NSWB chapters. Beginning in 2000 the El Salvador Initiative has traveled to San Sebastián 11 times; also beginning in 2000 the Migrant Health Initiative began provided local assistance to migrant camps in the Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia
Charlottesville is an independent city geographically surrounded by but separate from Albemarle County in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States, and named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the queen consort of King George III of the United Kingdom.The official population estimate for...
area; between 2001 and 2002 the Russia Initiative completed two trips to Kysmolovsky, Russia; and in 2004 the South Africa Initiative worked with local clinics, provided health education on various topics and delivered needed supplies in The South Africa Initiative to a community in Thohoyandou
Thohoyandou
Thohoyandou is a town in the Limpopo Province of South Africa. It is the administrative centre of Vhembe District Municipality and Thulamela Local Municipality. It is also known for being the former capital of the bantustan of Venda....
, Limpopo Province.
See also
- Avocats Sans FrontièresAvocats Sans FrontièresAvocats Sans Frontières , also known as Advocaten Zonder Grenzen is an international non-governmental organization contributing to the creation of fair and equitable societies, in which the law and its institutions serve the most vulnerable groups and individuals...
- Doctors Without BordersMédecins Sans Frontières' , or Doctors Without Borders, is a secular humanitarian-aid non-governmental organization best known for its projects in war-torn regions and developing countries facing endemic diseases. Its headquarters are in Geneva, Switzerland...
- Lawyers Without BordersLawyers Without BordersLawyers Without Borders is an international non-profit organization founded in 2000, which operates worldwide from its central headquarters located in Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.A. It has only one affiliate: Lawyers Without Borders UK founded in 2003, headquartered in London, which acquired UK...