Jaysa Horn

KINS 4306 - Internship in Public Health

Reflection Paper

April 12, 2020

Introduction

My name is Jaysa Horn. The organization that I was an public health intern for was the

Fellowship Home at Meriwether in Milledgeville Georgia. The Fellowship Home Is an assisted

living facility that has been operating since 1978 and has four other locations in Georgia that

include Fellowship Home at Brookside in Valdosta, Fellowship Home of Nashville in Nashville,

Fellowship Home at Cordelia Manor in Cordele, and Fellowship Home at Cotton Hill in

Cuthbert. The original location is Fellowship Home at Brookside, which is located in Valdosta.

The senior living community known as The Fellowship Home, was established by the LaHood

family as a ministry to senior adults. Their goal was to build a place where the elderly population

of the community could reside and receive assistance with their daily needs and activities in a

non-nursing home environment.

Fellowship Home houses senior citizens. There are approximately 60 residents. Their

age’s range from the youngest being 68 years of age to the oldest being 101 years of age. The

environment is best described as a place that combines southern style with tradition, senior

hospitality, convenience, and comfort. The Fellowship Home is family-owned and takes great

pride in serving their residents like family of their own. The facility has an assisted living

subdivision and a memory care unit. The staff include certified nursing assistants, licensed

practical nurse, cookers, housekeepers, maintenance worker, activity directors, beautician,

volunteers, secretaries, administrator assistant, associate administrator, and an executive director.

The Fellowship Home family’s mission is to provide quality family style senior living services

and care in a Christian environment for those that may require assistance with daily living

activities.
The Fellowship Home’s amenities include scenic walking paths, quiet porches, gardening beds,

three daily nutritious meals, beauty and barbershop, fitness and wellness center, library,

computer room, theater room, housekeeping, social and recreational activities, transportation,

and worship services. The personal care staff is available 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.

Although this is an assisted living community that encourages their residents to be as

independent as possible, the personal care staff is always available to assist with daily living

activities. The services that are offered at the Fellowship Home include assisted living care

licensure, direct care staff, medication management, nurse call system, memory care, physical

therapy, home health, record keeping of medical appointments and physician orders, and

additional personal care services as needed.

Description of Services

My role as a public health intern required me to wear many hats on a day to day basis.

My responsibilities working with both memory care and assisted living residents included

encouraging resident participation in weekly activities (e.g. devotion, puzzles, bingo, exercise,

music therapy, walking club, board games, and arts and craft), organize and deliver mail,

organize offices, assist at the front desk with calls, help with serving (lunch and dinner), post

flyers for mandatory staff meetings, assist the nursing and kitchen staff, and assist residents with

anything they may need help with such as daily living tasks, instrumental tasks, expressive tasks,

and cognitive tasks. The most rewarding part of my internship was having the chance to help the

memory care residents. Most of the memory care residents had more than one impairment. One

of the memory care residents by the name of Patsy has dementia and is blind. I helped her alot

during my internship. Helping her with the small things such as participating in music therapy,

arts and craft, and dining made me realize how important spending time with the elderly is.
Many of the residents don’t receive frequent visitation from their family members. Unfortunately

this often leads to decrease in social and emotional well-being from feeling like they have a lack

of support. Helping the memory care residents at the Fellowship Home reminded me so much of

home, because I have first hand experience of taking care of my great-grandparents that suffer

from Dementia and Alzheimer's. Having this experience at home motivated me even more to

help the memory care residents at the Fellowship Home. It was evident that being there in their

presence and having the opportunity to help them with simple tasks emotionally fulfilled them

with joy and happiness. It is a rewarding feeling to be able to make a difference in their day by

giving them comfort through providing a helping hand and support.

Although it was such a rewarding feeling helping the memory care residents, dealing

with these residents that are suffering from dementia and Alzheimer's was the most challenging

part of my experience. Alzheimer’s and dementia are chronic cognitive decline disorders that

often create a barrier between those that are suffering from the disorder and those that are taking

care of them. As I helped the memory care residents, It took a lot of patience to sit there and

listen to them repeat themselves and remind them to not do something that could cause them

harm or distress. Other challenging Alzheimer behavior that I experienced working with the

memory care residents included refusal to eat, wandering, repetitive actions, paranoia,

hallucinations, and confusion. I found it very difficult creating more safe activities for them to

engage in. It was difficult because each memory care resident’s cognitive impairment was at a

different level of severity. Some memory care residents had more limits to the different activities

that they could participate in than others. With that being mentioned, something that I would do

more of is spend more time coming up with activities or meaningful projects specifically for the

memory care residents. I would do this, because I feel a lot of times memory care residents are
forgotten about during activity time in contrast to the assisted living residents at the Fellowship

Home.

Perception and Evaluation of the Internship

Although time was cut short due to COVID-19, my public health internship did meet my

personal expectations. I was expecting my experience to be more intense as far as responsibilities

go, in contrast to my community health service learning experience at the Fellowship Home.

Transitioning from a community service learner into an intern, I figured that I would have more

responsibilities. Having more responsibilities allowed me to build meaningful relationships and

interact more with the staff and the residents. Interacting and building better relationships with

the staff and residents helped me confidently take on my role as an intern and made me realize

that I was really a part of the Fellowship Home family.

The Fellowship Home staff and residents were frequently open to my ideas and

contributions when it came to various activities and tasks that needed to be completed.

Oftentimes, the CNAs needed my help with meal time and answering call lights when they were

short staffed. They were always relieved that I was there to step up and help out. In regards to

ideas, the activity directors would ask me to help plan and create new activities for the residents.

President’s Trivia was an activity I helped plan and create for the residents. They really enjoyed

having the opportunity to exercise their brains and reflect back on the history of the American

presidents.

Supervision from my internship supervisor was really effective for the purpose of my project.

She provided a safe and comfortable space for me and the other interns to work together so that

we could develop skills and knowledge. She played a major role in being supportive and

motivating me and the other interns to practice good work ethic.

 My experience could have been improved by allowing more time for me to shadow the

nurses at the facility. I desire to have had more time to shadow, because it is essential that I get

as much experience possible for my future career path as a registered nurse. I valued the time

that I did shadow the nurses at the Fellowship Home because I learned alot about caring for those

in the elderly population.

I would recommend this setting for future interns because this is a great setting to learn

about the health and well being of elderly individuals. For those that are seeking a career in

geriatric care or improving public health aspects such as chronic diseases this is a great place to

learn about the common health characteristics of the elderly. The elderly individuals in the

community are really appreciative of having the chance to socially interact and getting help with

different daily activities.

Since the first week of my internship experience, I have considered a career in this

setting. I have been considering a career as a geriatric nurse in a facility such as this, because I

would like to work with memory care elderly individuals. Although Dementia and Alzheimer's

are challenging chronic diseases, I would like to take part as a professional in improving the

health and well-being of memory care individuals.

Internship Preparedness

Overall ,due to my community health course, I was very well prepared academically for

my internship. Fortunately, my community health course allowed me to get familiar with the

Fellowship Home through volunteer experience. Due to this volunteer experience, I was able to

transition into an intern. Having at home experience taking care of my great-grandparents and

completing the community health course made me feel most prepared and confident in regards to

addressing issues, learning, and taking on responsibilities during my internship. Specifically,

While interacting with the Memory care residents, I realized that learning about the “10

Absolutes for Alzheimer Caregivers” is a relevant concept for my experience. Applying this

concept I learned in the community health course helped me communicate better and build

meaningful bonds with the memory care residents.

There were only a few things I felt least prepared for, which were leading exercise class

for the residents and taking on the role of filling in for the receptionist. I have never had the

experience of being an exercise instructor or receptionist until I began my internship at the

Fellowship Home. I wasn’t exactly prepared to take on these roles, but with the help of the staff I

learned to effectively master these roles during my experience.

To better prepare public health students for real life application of public health concepts

and future employment, GCSU’s school of health professors need to implement more group

public health projects in each course where students are required to go out into the community to

network with professionals and implement an intervention that relates to certain concepts they’ve

learned in their public health class. This should be required in every course. Students often get

bored with just sitting in class listening to lectures and reading textbooks. Getting real-life

experience that relates to things that they are learning in class will best prepare them for their

internship and future career endeavors.

Internship Performance

Patience, effective communication, compassion, and adaptability are important skills that

I acquired during my internship experience. I acquired essential knowledge on how these skills

play a critical role in senior care . Working with elderly individuals that have significant physical

and mental ailments was challenging . Therefore, I had to have a great deal of patience, effective
communication, compassion, the ability to adapt , so that I could establish rapport and make

them feel comfortable and earn their trust in order to provide care and service.

I was very satisfied with my overall performance on assignments, projects, and

presentations. I did my absolute best in managing my time, meeting deadlines, and producing

quality work in the midst of my internship experience getting cut short due to the COVID-19

pandemic occurring. On a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being the not satisfied and 5 being the

extremely satisfied, I would give myself a 4. A four represents being very satisfied with the

quality of my work. Every assignment I have, I thoroughly complete the task at hand to ensure

that it is my best work. For the purpose of this course, I have been aiming to make grades that

match my excellent work ethic out in the community health field.

My leadership skills need more improvement so that I can be as successful as possible

after graduation. I need to work on being more confident in my ability to lead. Confidence,

decisiveness, problem solving, and ability to teach and present are all leadership skills that I need

to sharpen as a better leader. I need to sharpen these leadership skills so that I can be a

productive employee and a fully contributing member of any team.

Personal/Professional Insights/Benefits

My internship experience has impacted my academic, personal, and professional goals in

more ways than one. Before beginning my internship, my primary professional goal was to

narrow down the specific career path I wanted to pursue as a nurse. My internship experience has

helped me choose what area of the health field I want to specialize in. Due to observing how

infectious disease outbreaks such as the COVID-19 pandemic can impact lives and operation of

senior care facilities , I now aspire to become a public health nurse to better these types of

experiences. My internship has positively impacted my academic goal of furthering my

education after graduating from Georgia College and State University with my bachelors degree

in public health. During my internship I was able to shadow nurses in the facilities and learn alot

about senior care. My shadowing experience has encouraged me even more to go to nursing

school in the near future. My internship has also positively influenced my professional goal as

well. As a future medical professional, my goal was to allow for my internship to help me

enhance my networking skills. Through my internship experience, I was able to confidently

interact with residents, the staff, and other medical professionals. In regards to personal growth,

my confidence has always been something that needed improving throughout my academic

career. Interacting and learning from others during my public health internship experience

allowed me to step outside of my comfort zone and gain the confidence I needed to build

meaningful connections with those in my internship environment.

Over the course of my public health internship, I was able to learn alot about the health

and well-being of the elderly population through implementing a monthly wellness newsletter

and shadowing nurses at the facility. Chronic diseases as well as visual and hearing impairments

were the most common burdensome health issues of this particular community. Implementing

health education with the wellness newsletter at the Fellowship Home, made me realize that the

seniors here value help and learning about ways they can improve their health and environment.

Hello Jaysa, Your dedication to learn, grow and gain more experience during your

internship was manifested in that you continued to intern even when Georgia College went on-

line. I am sure what you learned and experience will serve as a foundation to a successful Public

Health Nursing career for you. I wish you the best.