Chaminade Nursing students traveled to Lana’i recently to share important health prevention messaging with community members. Along the way, they also got some lessons of their own about the unique challenges that residents of rural communities face in accessing healthcare and other services.
A group of eight students, members of Chaminade’s Student Nurses’ Association, made the trek to Lana’i on Nov. 9 with Assistant Professor Jennifer Nafarrete, Ed.D. for the Lāna‘i Kinā‘ole Health Fair.
During the daylong event, Chaminade students broke up into two groups, with one focused on sharing information on fire and fall prevention safety at home and the other focused on nutrition messaging.
Association President Presh Coloma ’25 said students were excited to meet with members of rural communities on Lana’i. The island is home to about 3,000 people and has limited options for healthcare.
“They don’t have access to many resources,” Coloma said. “Our audience was from little kids to the elderly. It definitely tested our Nursing students really well because attendees had so many questions.”
For example, Coloma said, one attendee wanted to know how to determine if the foods in the local grocery store were diabetes-friendly. Another attendee asked for information about specific resources on Lanai’i, requiring students to do some homework of their own so that they could help.
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Coloma said she spoke to a resident who had to travel to O’ahu regularly for cancer treatment.
“Patients like her lack medication adherence because they don’t have those resources,” she said.
Nafarrete said in addition to speaking to event attendees, the Chaminade students got the chance to make the rounds to chat with other organizations represented at the health fair. “They learned a lot about rural access to health care,” she said, adding the group is hoping to return soon.
In the meantime, though, the Chaminade Student Nurses’ Association is staying busy.
On the same day that students in the group traveled to Lana’i, another cadre volunteered to help manage the first-aid tent at the 2024 Hawai’i Parkinson’s Walk. And students in the association will also be running the first-aid tent at the Salvation Army’s Thanksgiving Day dinner at Blaisdell Center.