If you're worried about Ebola, talk to Joan Culley.
The associate professor of nursing is a nurse researcher in the field of informatics and nursing systems, her primary field of research is emergency preparedness, and she's familiar with the best ways to deal with patients with infectious diseases of all kinds.
Culley teaches classes on this topic and was recently funded with her second National Institutes of Health grant to look at triage during mass casualty events. She gained expertise in these areas when she was a nurse corps officer, a field she retired from as a captain in the Navy.
“I spent a lot of time at the Bureau of Medicine in Washington looking at their disaster and readiness plans and helping to develop education, training and disaster preparedness drills,” Culley said.
The most recent wakeup call that has forced medical experts such as Culley to look at the way we handle infectious diseases is the Ebola virus. According to Culley, this is not a time to panic, but it is important to look at policies and procedures that are in place for all contagious and infectious diseases while making sure they are up to date and are communicated to the health care professionals involved.
“The people involved are not just doctors and nurses. They include the people who clean the unit, police officers, airport workers and an even larger string of people,” Culley said. “How do we effectively communicate to all of these people what they need to be concerned about and what they can do about it?”
Only one person in the U.S. has died of Ebola, and there has been concern surrounding it, but Culley said people should actually be more concerned about the flu. The flu vaccine is readily available, but Culley believes that not enough students take advantage of it.
“I have gotten my flu shot this year, and I think it’s important to do so,” said first-year education student Christine Rossi. "People are extremely worked up about Ebola, but they don’t consider how many people die of the flu each year and that there is a readily available vaccination to prevent it.”
One point of concern is the lack of knowledge about the difference between isolation and quarantine and which is appropriate for a situation. Isolation is used when someone who is ill is kept out of contact from those who are not ill. Quarantine is when people who have been exposed are removed from contact with others for 21 days in order to monitor them and see if they get sick. This information is important because people must be quarantined or isolated in order to break the chain of infection and control an infectious disease.
For college students, many simple procedures and basic public health practices can be taken to help prevent contracting an infectious disease. Students should always wash their hands after they come in contact with germs and get a flu shot.
“Don’t go to school if you are sick. I also wouldn’t encourage students to go to health services because they are going to bring their germs there,” Culley said. “Unless they have significant breathing problems or a high temperature, the health services will simply tell you to go to your room, drink plenty of fluids and come back if you have any serious complications.”