‘Gel In, Gel Out’ Wayne County Community College District Nursing students learned how to prevent spread of infectious diseases during Service -Learning trip to London, England BY DAVID C. B UTTY Kimberly Lynne Sexton of Wyandotte will graduate from the Wayne County Community College District’s (WCCCD) nursing program this year. Sexton, an intern nurse at the Henry Ford Hospital in Wyandotte is grateful to the District for implementing a Service-Learning component for Nursing students and providing an opportunity to extend their learning beyond the traditional classroom thereby broadening their global knowledge. She was one of 27 WCCCD Nursing students who from March 22-30 traveled to London, England, for this Service Learning experience. Two teaching hospitals located in central London, the Guy’s and St. Thomas’ National Health Service Foundation Trust; serves as their primary sites for this visit. Sexton said she “I was moved by the District’s initiative to provide students with a great opportunity” to travel outside of the United States and study at two leading teaching hospitals in the United Kingdom. The opportunity to compare and contrast the healthcare delivery systems in the United States and the UK was a unique educational experience. “This trip was an experience of a lifetime for me, and my overall impression was more than favorable. What an opportunity to explore a completely different culture! I noticed was that healthcare is different and yet the same in Big Ben is one of London's best-known landmarks is the world’s most famous clock. It stands on the bank of the Thames River. On the two different parts of the world,” she added. left is The Palace of Westminster, also known as the House of Parliament. Irv Jones, President of Escape Study International, in the U.S.,” she observed. “Another area that was fascinating to conjunction with staff at St. Thomas’ and Guy’s Hospitals, me was that educators are not allowed to ‘sign off’ on designed the format of the service-learning curriculum. The students in the clinical area. Students are placed with lecture topics included: The structure of care and service mentors and the mentors are the only ones that can take delivery, The role of a chief nurse and the senior nursing responsibility for signing off.” team, Caring for the elderly, Working as a nurse in accident Study shows that service learning is essential to help and emergency rooms, and a lecture by the Chief Nurse, future nursing students’ understand and appreciate the Eileen Sills. The students learned about pre and post discipline and to further their understanding of course registration training along with the competencies and content; giving them an enhanced sense of personal values policies for nursing skills, the role of nurse caring for and civic responsibility. children, and protecting patients’ rights in the United Rosellen Burkart, director of WCCCD’s Nursing Kingdom. Program, could not have been more pleased with the In addition to lectures and hospital tours the students opportunity to provide students with the chance to travel to toured the Florence Nightingale Museum named after the England. “Today’s nurses need an array of approaches to the “mother of nursing,” for her achievement in raising nursing profession and service learning offers those critical thinking to the level of a profession. The students visited a historic skills; the ability to communicate with their patients across Operating Theatre, located in the Herb Garret of St. cultures and national boundaries; and the ability to make Thomas’ Church. Here, the students observed how surgeons informed judgments regarding patients care.” performed surgery in the 1800s before the use of anesthesia, Okey Akwanamnye, one of the male nursing students in depending on swift techniques and using alcohol to dull the the group, said the rigorous hand washing campaign at both WCCCD students pose outside the gate of Buckingham Palace, the patient’s senses. hospitals to prevent the spread of disease fascinated him. official London residence of the English Monarchy. The process is known as ‘Gel In, and Gel Out,’ and everyone entering patient facilities knows how to gel in and gel out. There are gel sanitizer bottles at every entrance on every door, and the bedside of each patient. Anyone entering the facilities that house patients must sanitize their hands before and after their visit. “During staff training we have the capability to detect if their hand-wash was thorough or not,” said a St. Thomas’s staff as he explained to the group the hand-washing technique. We use an electronic sensor which can detect which area of the hand was missed,” he said as he held up a prototype of hands with spots on them, indicating that they were not properly washed. “I was impressed,” said Akwanamnye, who is graduating this spring. “At first, I thought the rules only applied to the staff at the hospital, but when we were touring the wards at St. Thomas, I watched a man who was visiting the hospital gel in upon arrival and gel out WCCCD Pediatrics instructor, Andrea S. Gafford, chats with a staff The London Eye, sometimes called the Millennium Wheel, is 443 feet during tea break in the Governor’s Hall at St. Thomas’ Hospital. tall, and is one of the most popular paid tourist attractions in London, when the exited. No one had to tell him. That is a England. unique policy to have,” Adwanamnye said. “It is not like washing your hands before a meal, Along with their study related lectures students had the you have to gel in and gel out…gosh, I don’t know how opportunity to participate in an excursion tour of the City of many times an hour…especially during a busy shift,” said London and visited such notable places as Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, the London Eye, Big Ben, Parliament Square, Westminster, and the Madame Tussauds’ Wax Museum. “There is a strong momentum in London to catch up with the United States, and yet their organizational and procedural policies and actions sometimes exceed our own,” Sexton said. “We were able to see nursing practices put into action, and compare and contrast nursing techniques between the United Kingdom and the U.S.” “For me, the value here was in being able to go outside of the only way of life I have known and see how others live. Trafalgar Square is dedicated to the heroics of Admiral Horatio As a soon-to-be graduate nurse, I am Viscount Nelson, whose likeness is depicted by an 18 foot-tall statue hoping to use the information I have atop the 172 foot column in the center of the square. Here pigeons gathered to make a difference here at home. If we could and humans mix easily. Collette Laws-Chapman, head of nursing education at both combine the two healthcare systems, what a difference we hospitals. “I wear my gel bottle like a cowboy wearing a could make.” pistol,” she said as she demonstrated how she squirts the Sexton found one difference in the way surgeries are liquid in her hands. “When the hospital is busy, it is possible performed in the US and in the UK. “The rules of no to miss the gel bottle by the door. I always remember that I surgeries after 10 p.m. and doctors not being able to work have my own gel bottle and she smiled as she demonstrated any more than 48 hours per week is greatly different from her own techniques of gel in and gel out.” WCCCD nursing students pose with nurses from the various departments of St. Thomas’ and Guy’s following a presentation. The Florence Nightingale Museum is named after the “mother of The Chief Nurse at St. Thomas’ and Guy’s, Eileen Sills, address nursing,” for her achievement in raising nursing to the level of a WCCCD nursing students. profession..