National Nurses United

When patients can't get to the hospital, when it's their homes that are making them sick, or when natural disasters or wars rob them of access to standard medical care, someone has to be there to help. That's where these four nurses come in. While most registered nurses continue to work in hospitals, some find their work in far-flung locales and in unique positions that require particular skills and personalities. From jails to forensic teams, lots of different organizations need registered nurses, and here are a few who have heeded the call. They've left the hospital and are bringing health to the people. The Trainer Lori Bowers, RN Photos by John L. Russell T hree days a week, Lori Bowers, RN, puts on her scrubs, enters the sterile halls of Alpena Regional Medical Center in Alpena, Michigan and assists in the births and deliveries of northeastern Michigan's babies. But between April and October, you're just as likely to find Bowers, 47 and a nurse since 1993, standing on the dusty tarmac of Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center, watching as medical personnel scale two-story-high piles of rubble in search of victims of natural disasters and military strikes. Bowers is a captain in the Air National Guard. Every week, spring through fall, she helps train 45 to 75 medical reservists in how to save 20 N AT I O N A L N U R S E military personnel and civilians during disasters or wars as part of a Guard program called EMEDS, or Expeditionary Medical Support. Most of Bowers' time is spent outside, supervising and teaching the reservists to set up the $3.2 million mobile hospital (what she calls a "very expensive tent"), complete with an emergency room, surgery suite with centralized sterilizer, dental clinic, ICU, x-ray, laboratory and full pharmacy. "It's like MASH, but more high-tech," she said. The real test comes on the third day, when the reservists must confront a simulated emergency. That's where the pile of rubble comes in. Fake "patients" made up and taught to explain specific injuries are hidden in the rubble. Suddenly, doctors who work in private practice must learn to diagnose and treat without the luxury of a CT scanner or MRI and learn laboratory values for blood and medications that are different in a mobile hospital than in a traditional one. They must learn when to treat there and when to airlift patients to remote trauma centers. Instead of running the halls of a hospital between patients, Bowers is criss-crossing the tarmac, stopping students from lifting a litter with two men instead of four, teaching a medical technician the right and wrong way to treat an injury, and watching as a thoracic surgeon teaches everyone, including her, to insert a chest tube—just in case they are in an emergency situation and no one else can do it. "I'm used to working with a laboring patient and supporting her to bring a new baby into the world," Bowers said. "What we do at EMEDS is not the same at all. I enjoy both of them, but they're two totally different things. When you work in a hospital, especially a union hospital, if you're a med-surg nurse, you are a med-surg nurse. If you work in the ER you work in the ER. Everything is so clear and concise. In the military, you slip into different positions. Even though you may be a medsurg nurse, for the day, you may become an ICU nurse. You become comfortable, knowing that if you're deployed somewhere you can walk into a facility and know you've been trained on how to make it work." W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G MARCH 2010 PHOTO ON PRECEDING PAGE: NANCY DIONNE Unusual Nurses 3_No Ginn 2 box 4/1/10 3:11 PM Page 20

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