When Ranjit Dhari began working as a public health nurse in Ontario, her car was equipped with home health supplies, a shovel, and sandbags. To navigate the long, snow-packed driveways of the rural farmhouses where her elderly patients lived, she needed to be resourceful. “You had to know how to dig yourself out of these driveways or else you were stuck in the snow,” recalls Dhari. “I loved it.”

Dhari takes that same resolve and resourcefulness to her teaching in the UBC Nursing BSN program. Dhari teaches Professional Population Public Health. The course teaches students how to address population health issues from a nursing perspective and exposes students to population groups that range in age, ethnicity, gender, income, education, housing status, and other determinants of health.

Examples of the work students do in the course include postpartum depression screenings for new mothers, newborn baby home visits, and presentations to secondary students about sexual health and STI prevention. Students have also been a part of UBC initiatives such as Thrive, which promotes mental health.

The course also introduces students to working with populations that traditionally have been underserved such as new fathers, newcomers who face language barriers, and the elderly who may face isolation and access to services.

“One day I was with my students at a food bank and we were doing a blood pressure screening, which often lets us start a conversation with someone who may be in need of other services. A man appeared very stressed and agitated. He came to the students’ screening booth and said: ‘I want to get dry. I want to start today.’”

Dhari and her students stayed with the man and immediately got in touch with an addictions counsellor at the Ravensong community center who was able to see him right away. “We went to the centre to make sure he didn’t get lost in the shuffle and got the services he was looking for.”

Other experiences for students include shadowing a home health nurse working with clients who live in single room occupancy hotels in the downtown eastside of Vancouver. Dhari says that students are looking for a challenging hands-on experience, even though at first they may be a bit scared, nervous or a little overwhelmed. She says the experience is all about creating a proper fit.

“I want to make sure my students have the knowledge that our communities are made of different types of people and how we do outreach to those who are underserved and how to build trust with people. When you’re a public health nurse you only have a couple of minutes sometimes to build that trust so you need to build your communication and trust in a quick way.”