CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A new partnership between the Corpus Christi-Nueces County Public Health District and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi is giving nursing students a chance at hands-on experience.
Health officials told 3NEWS the idea of the partnership goes back to the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for nurses across the community.
Assistant director of the health district Dante Gonzalez said the city reached out to TAMU-CC to recruit nursing students to help provide health district services.
"They want to go work for a hospital right, they want to go work for a doctor's office. But we have another path here in Corpus Christi, which is public health, and hopefully they'll get to see something here that they enjoy," he said.
Gonzalez said nursing students learn about preventative services at the health district compared to the clinical ones at hospitals. Ashley Drillen worked at the City-County health district for five years. She now works with nursing students at TAMU-CC.
"I love it and I love to share it with them because it really opens their eyes to people in the community and the different jobs you can get outside of a hospital," she said.
Drillen said working in public health will give students a new perspective when caring for patients once they work in a clinical setting.
"There's more to a person than what they're seeing in the hospital bed. Think about them, they have a home, what resources do they have at home?" she said.
Students in the clinic are in their fifth and final semester of TAMU-CC's nursing program. There are nine students now and 10 new ones will rotate in around mid-March. Drillen said it's the first time in six years since students had this opportunity.
"We haven't had nursing students here at the health district since then and so we're really excited to bring them back and to offer all the opportunities that they can rotate through all the clinics and really understand what public health is," she said.
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