QUINCY, Ill. (AP) - Kim Gray has always appreciated the approach taken at Blessing-Rieman College of Nursing and Health Sciences.
“(Blessing-Rieman) is always on the cutting edge,” she said.
Gray should know. She’s one of the reasons.
Gray, a 1989 graduate of the college, is a clinical instructor who specializes in introducing Blessing-Rieman senior students to community health outreaches.
Gray has helped expose students to opportunities and caring for patients outside the walls of the hospital. The experiences she has created have put future nurses in a soup kitchen, hospice, home care, schools — even ride-alongs with the Quincy Police Department.
“There’s a lot of outreach, a lot of purpose,” Gray said. “We want to get the students out there and get them experiencing what real life is like. It can be eye-opening.”
Gray, a native of Des Moines, Iowa, has wanted to be connected with the medical profession as far back as she can remember. Her involvement with these kind of outreaches, many of which she was instrumental in developing, is the proverbial labor of love for a nurse who realized long ago her role in a community should stretch beyond an examination room.
“We want to help our nurses better understand people and their stories,” she said. “It helps them learn about the community as a whole, and acclimate them to that community.”
Gray not only cares about the community, she’s concerned with the nursing students, too.
When Gray discovered some students were forced to miss meals because of a lack of money, she was an integral figure in an assessment of food insecurity and students in need.
The result was the Caring Cupboard, an outreach to aid students at Blessing-Rieman who were having trouble making ends meet.
President and Chief Executive Officer of the college Brenda Beshears also was heavily involved in developing the Caring Cupboard, which is a food pantry that serves as a distribution point for students in need.
Extra food is also supplied to the student lounge for students to take.
Blessing-Rieman staff and faculty who may also be experiencing food insecurities also are encouraged to use the Caring Cupboard.
There are canned and boxed goods, plus fresh produce and hygiene items available at the pantry.
In turn, the Caring Cupboard partners with Horizons Social Services — which operates a soup kitchen and food pantry in downtown Quincy — by sharing its daily produce.
“I love, love, love working with Horizons,” Gray said. “I enjoy just being (alongside the) students and (working with) partners like Horizons.”
Gray hopes eventually to integrate junior nursing students into more of the real-life programs. She fully expects these outreaches to do nothing but grow in the years to come, and feels it is never too early to allow students to gain that invaluable type of hands-on training and experience.
An intangible in this equation is the actual need for the nursing students’ assistance in their areas of involvement. Their contributions grow in importance as nonprofits and other social services attempt to try to keep up with the demand from those in need of food, medical aid and other assistance.
“It’s exploding,” Gray said.
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Source: The Quincy Herald-Whig, https://bit.ly/2qql0VW
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Information from: The Quincy Herald-Whig, https://www.whig.com
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