| April 9, 2001 |
Contact: Judith
T. Lunsford |
For the past eight years, Camp Twin Lakes has given children with chronic illnesses and certain disabilities the opportunity to have a sleep-over summer camp experience, while still having their special health concerns addressed. The camp also gives students from Georgia Baptist College of Nursing of Mercer University in Atlanta an opportunity to put their nursing skills into practice as a camp nurse-counselor.
Mercer nursing students can earn up to two hours of elective credit when they spend a week as a camp nurse-counselor at the various one-week summer camps that take place at Camp Twin Lakes. This is the third summer the College of Nursing has offered camp nursing as an elective, allowing students to volunteer at camps such as Camp Kudzu, for children with diabetes; Camp Independence, for children with kidney, heart and liver transplants, and Camp Wak-N-Hak, for children with cystic fibrosis.
Before becoming a camp nurse-counselor, the nursing students attend lectures and an orientation. While at the camp, they are required to keep a daily journal, do one case study on a camper and have faculty members visit. Their camp responsibilities include sleeping in the cabins with the children, doing basic assessment and working in the infirmary.
"I learned a lot about day-to-day nursing," said Gina Neville, a senior nursing student from Loganville, Ga., who volunteered at Camp Kudzu last summer. "The interaction of answering questions and teaching the kids about diabetes helped me to learn how to be a nurse outside the hospital."
The camps not only provide the nursing students with an opportunity to work with children and concentrate on a certain area of health, but they also provide a place where the children can be themselves. "In that setting, the children don't see themselves as different," said Dr. JoEllen Datillo, assistant dean of the undergraduate program at Mercer's College of Nursing.
Located in Rutledge, Ga., about 50 miles east of Atlanta, Camp Twin Lakes sits on 130 acres of wooded land. Kids participate in regular camp activities such as swimming, arts and crafts, canoeing and theme nights. The entire staff at each camp is voluntary, with medical directors provided, along with any special equipment, treatment and prescriptions needed for the children.
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