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Using Student Nursing Teamwork To Collect Diapers for Sextuplets
Only a few more days remain for School of Nursing students, faculty, and staff to make their donations to a diaper drive for recently born Alabama sextuplets. In a drive that will end July 31, diapers are being collected for use by Heather and Mitchell Carroll for their five newborn baby girls and one newborn baby boy, who were delivered at Brookwood Medical Center. The Carrolls, who reside in the small south-central Alabama town of Plantersville in Dallas County, welcomed their babies into the world when Heather Carroll gave birth prematurely on June 18, the day before Father’s Day. Born at 28 weeks gestation, the babies were small but strong, breathing on their own within 12 hours. Joining forces in conducting the diaper drive for the sextuplets at the UAB School of Nursing are students who participate in the EANS program (Enrichment for Academic Nursing Success) and members of the Student Nurses Association (SNA). Leading the way in coordinating the project are EANS student Jennifer A. Browner and SNA representative Kendall Allen. Browner and Allen urge anyone who wants to donate diapers to do so at collection bins that have been set up by the elevators on different floors of the School of Nursing Building. The drive is focusing on collecting diaper sizes 1 through 5. The goal is to help the Carrolls to build a diaper supply that can be useful beyond the first weeks of the sextuplets’ lives. In addition to diapers, gift cards or money donations also are being accepted. The idea for this project originated with Browner, a student from the rural town of Ellenwood, Georgia, near Atlanta, who, after earning a degree in biology, now is working toward a baccalaureate in nursing and wants to go into pediatric nursing. The idea for the diaper drive came to her in June, during a time when she was among eight UAB nursing students doing a clinical rotation at Brookwood Medical Center. That student learning experience came during the period that encompassed the birth of the sextuplets. “Each of the eight of us in our UAB group interacted in some way with either the Carroll babies or the Carroll parents,” says Browner. “I had the opportunity to meet the Carroll parents, who are awesome people.” Browner emphasizes that, while this was originally her idea, soon the project was wholeheartedly embraced by her fellow nursing students in EANS and SNA. “So, although it started as my idea, soon it was OUR idea,” she says. She first floated the idea to EANS coordinator Martha A. Dawson, DNP, who in turn discussed it with Summer Langston, DNP, advisor to the Student Nurses Association. Both faculty members felt this was a worthy project and welcomed an opportunity for EANS and SNA to cooperate on a joint effort. From her view as a faculty member, Dawson says this project goes far beyond a diaper drive. “To me this is a student project that emphasizes what I call ‘the caring part’ of nursing,” she explains. “We have the art and science of nursing, and we also have that caring part. All of this comes together in a way that I feel ties us back to the days of Florence Nightingale. I think projects such as this demonstrate why the public continues to recognize nursing as a caring profession and continues to hold the nursing profession in such high regard.” Also, says Dawson, a project such as this shows students what they can accomplish when they combine their efforts as members of organizations that can get things done for worthy goals ranging from advocacy to public policy and beyond. Faculty member Langston echoes her enthusiasm. She notes that the SNA has ongoing involvement in outreach projects all the way from the local to the international level. “However, this diaper drive projects marks the first time in this School of Nursing that there has been a cooperative project between the SNA and EANS.” That, says, Langston is exciting. “This is inspirational,” she says. “Our students are inspired!” As SNA representative Kendall Allen has taken a lead on the diaper drive from the SNA perspective, she says to her this project is a great lesson in teamwork. “This is super-exciting, for SNA members to be working with EANS on this diaper drive – all of us working together as a team. To me this is the kind of teamwork that prepares us for our future roles as nurses who are working on teams.” Allen, who is from the Birmingham area and wants to go into labor and delivery nursing, felt a soft spot in her heart for the diaper drive project from the moment it was mentioned to her. It was Jennifer Browner who took the diaper drive idea to sextuplet mom Heather Carroll. “Mrs. Carroll was so grateful and expressed to me her gratitude,” says Browner. “She was not only thankful; she also jokingly asked me, “Do you know any babysitters as well?’ ” The diaper-donation spirit is alive and well within those coordinating this drive. Faculty member Dawson said that she recently was having a conversation with someone and that all during the conversation she had this diaper drive project on her mind. “I thought to myself, ‘Just as soon as I finish this conversation, I’m on my way to buy some diapers!’ ” Those coordinating the drive encourage others to do the same – between now and July 31. |
