By Renee Greer
Welcome to the 2017 National Jamboree nursing staff. I am the Jamboree Chief Nursing Officer (aka Deputy Chief Medical Officer for Nursing) and am delighted you joined this fabulous team. I particularly welcome first-time staff volunteers to this exciting event. Many of you are returning staffers, and I thank you for supporting Scouting once again.
Our nursing group is more diversely staffed than ever, this year including military medics at base camp and program areas in a greatly expanded role. They come with all levels of experience, many straight from combat zones. I encourage the whole medical team to talk with our military medics about the trauma care lessons learned in Iraq, Afghanistan and other remote areas.
Our military personnel can do everything to save life, limb or eyesight, as well as help us handle the more mundane situations we see daily. Two limitations: they cannot dispense medications, and they are not allowed to start IVs (unless to save life, limb, or eyesight). There will also be military ambulance drivers and attendants for the FLA’s (Field Litter Ambulances).
In an exciting joint venture with the West Virginia University School of Nursing, undergraduate and graduate nursing students are on our team for a clinical rotation, providing nursing care and charting. Each nursing student will be assigned a nurse preceptor. We also have some physicians-in-training for a wilderness medicine rotation. Please welcome our nursing students to the real world, as well as to the exciting world of Scouting.
I am delighted to work with our military colleagues and the future of our profession! I am a military nurse, now retired, so this new partnership is near and dear to me. I have also been a professional educator, so the opportunity to precept graduate and undergraduate nursing students here is simply amazing.
One more fun fact: I work for the Department of Defense Trauma Registry and am all about Performance Improvement through the use of data. Quality data truly can make a difference in the care of the future. What does that mean to you? It means all of us need to record every patient encounter in the Electronic Treatment Record (ETR).
I also urge you to visit the display about the lifesaving “Stop the Bleed” campaign. It is near the AT&T Stadium. Why is that campaign successful, you ask? Data, pure and simple!