Nurses of the Week: University of Alabama at Birmingham Nursing Students Give Back at Adult Health Care Center

Our Nurses of the Week are a group of nursing students from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Nursing who volunteer weekly at the Wylam Adult Day Health Care Center in Birmingham, AL. UAB nursing students have been visiting the adult day health care center since 2014, helping to provide assessments to the clients, many of whom suffer from mental or physical disabilities that require daytime supervision while their caregivers are at work.

Every Tuesday, Wylam clients greet the nursing students with hugs and smiles as they arrive for their appointments. Students take vital signs, check weight, and ask about the nutrition of the dozens of adults who attend the Wylam Adult Day Health Care Center. The partnership began when a UAB clinical faculty member worked with the center and learned that they didn’t have a consistent person providing basic medical care.

Students provide basic health assessments to the center’s 67 clients under the guidance of Karen Coles, DNP, a UAB nursing instructor, and Laura Steadman, EdD, a UAB nursing assistant professor. No task is too small or large for these nursing students, from treating wounds to bathing an adult who they suspect hasn’t been properly cared for.

Yalanda Muhammad, manager of the Wylam Adult Day Health Care Center, tells UAB.edu, “We know in many cases that, if we don’t do it, no one will do it. I appreciate what they do when they come in because, if all they did was take their blood pressure and left, the clients would not be engaged with them. They go the extra mile.”

The partnership between the adult day center and UAB Nursing benefits both the students and clients. Nursing students gain valuable experience caring for a vulnerable population and it teaches them to be caring health care providers later in their careers.