Blood pressure clinic prepare nursing students for real world

By Taylor Renkema

Nursing students Melissa Owens and Andrew Shepherd show some of the pamphlets they were handing out to students about blood pressure and health on Monday. Photo by Taylor Renkema.

Loyalist’s nursing students are getting ready for the real world.

Students in the Brock University/ Loyalist College collaborate Bachelor of Science in nursing program were in the college’s Link Lounge taking people’s blood pressure Monday.

Students in this program take two years of registered nursing at Loyalist College, then move on for two more years at Brock University to get their degree.

Professor Elizabeth Edwards said a lot of people don’t realize they have poor blood pressure.

“It gets higher and higher and higher until they develop some kind of health problem whether they feel unwell and look for treatment as to why or somebody has a stroke,” she said.

The blood pressure clinic is mandatory in the nursing program. Edwards said it teaches students how to live with the basic essentials of nursing.

“The students take skills they have learned in lab all semester and they can practise them in an environment where they have to deal with people they don’t know, which is essentially what nursing is all about,” she said.

Brittney Sharpe is a first year in the program, and she said being a student can have a major impact on your blood pressure.

“Definitely from stress from homework and assignments, not exercising enough and not eating a healthy diet,” she said.

Sharpe said she likes holding the clinic, because it’s their last chance to practise their work before the students move on to their clinical placement and have to work with actual patients.

“There are a lot of people who are afraid to find out their blood pressure,” she said. “So we hope that if they’re more aware of the consequences of high blood pressure or low blood pressure, they’ll be more consistent with getting it checked.”

Edwards said low or high blood pressure can drastically affect a student’s ability to learn.

“Usually you’re fatigued and don’t have a lot of energy,” she said. “It becomes difficult to focus and you don’t process information well.”

Edwards said students who drink coffee or smoke are particularly vulnerable to a higher blood pressure.