When 29 aspiring household nurse practitioners boarded a bus to journey down Freeway 99, they knew they’d go to the individuals and areas that make up California’s Central Valley. However they did not notice simply how a lot the up-close-and-personal take a look at the agricultural communities alongside the route would form their outlook on well being care.
“Numerous my sufferers come from the valley. They’re immigrants, farmers and folks of shade,” stated Allan Dumlao, a registered nurse in San Francisco. “You all the time see the identical story. You see the patterns and also you marvel how one can make a distinction in these peoples’ lives and get to the basis explanation for this.”
Dumlao is a member of the inaugural class of the brand new Physician of Nursing Observe — Household Nurse Practitioner (D.N.P.-F.N.P.) Diploma Program on the Betty Irene Moore College of Nursing at UC Davis. The bus tour was a part of a five-day expertise in Sacramento that marked the primary time college students got here collectively in individual.

“The sense of neighborhood and the numerous collective contributions of the individuals within the Central Valley was inspirational and created hope for the longer term,” stated Kathryn Sexson, program director. “This expertise will bind these college students to the individuals of the Central Valley and one another without end.”
Hybrid program helps rural care
College students started on-line coursework in June on this hybrid program. The current on-site gathering is one in every of 4 immersive experiences they may have over the subsequent three years. This system is designed for registered nurses with both bachelor’s or grasp’s levels who search to be household nurse practitioners. Graduates go away ready as superior observe suppliers who have interaction in evidence-based patient- and family-centered major care and possess the flexibility to interact in change on the programs stage.
The tour is a part of the Interprofessional Central Valley Highway Journey sequence led by College of Nursing Affiliate Professor Jann Murray-García. This system has a number of goals:
- to increase the scholars’ consideration to the sweetness, historical past and contributions of the individuals of this particular area
- domesticate respectful curiosity in regards to the area’s well being, together with social determinants of its individuals’s well being together with the related public insurance policies that inform these determinants
- perceive the geography of well being inequities and disparities related to the inhabitants well being of this area.
Sexson led the crew that developed this new curriculum that actively works to alter the present narrative and develop significant options to the most important challenges of reaching optimum well being for all.
“Utilizing a framework of cultural humility to information us, we take a look at well being disparities and social and political determinants of well being in addition to look at well being fairness from present historic and societal views,” Sexson defined. “College students then use this to work with communities to establish and break down boundaries that contribute to disparities for marginalized and underserved populations.”
I obtained to know excellent people from numerous backgrounds with whom I share a standard mission; that’s, to change into a change agent in well being care.—January Patel, D.N.P. Scholar
Laying the muse
Clearly, it made an influence.
“The social interplay and networking that’s doable when individuals meet nose to nose is unparalleled. I obtained to know excellent people from numerous backgrounds with whom I share a standard mission; that’s, to change into a change agent in well being care,” stated D.N.P. scholar January Patel.
“This has been a humbling expertise that lays out the muse for me as a complicated observe supplier. I’ll all the time carry it with me and keep in mind,” Dumlao added.

This system was developed in a hybrid format, with primarily on-line programs to organize nurses dwelling and dealing in rural and different underserved areas to pursue their superior observe levels. The purpose is that after they graduate and are licensed, they supply major care of their communities.
After the Sacramento go to, college students returned to their house communities to proceed their hybrid schooling. The vast majority of the category is from throughout California, and plenty of are nurses in rural components of the state, together with Chico, Modesto and Fresno.