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Serving as both inspiration and hands-on guide to the next class of nurse practitioners, Doll shows Sally Kreser how to suture wounds, using a pig's foot for practice |
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Just as important, compressed video can serve many functions.
When not being used for classes, for example, the network can be
tapped for long-distance consultations with medical specialists.
"You can see and hear all kinds of things with compressed
video," Conners says. "You can hear subtle heart sounds. You can
see into the ear better than you can with the naked eye."
Conners and her colleagues haven't stopped there. Instructors are adapting their course work for the World Wide Web. Students undertake collaborative projects, complete exercises and even take exams over the Internet. "It makes for a richer educational experience," Conners says. "There's no sitting in the back of the class, hoping you don't get called on." All the technology in the world makes no difference, however, if people's lives are not changed for the better. And that is where nurse practitioners like Doll truly shine. When she started working in Garden City seven years ago, she was one of only two nurse practitioners, and childhood immunization rates hovered around 50%. Today there are six nurse practitioners, and immunization rates have jumped to 75%. That may not seem like much of a coup, but it means that somewhere there is a little girl who did not suffer brain damage because she never developed measles, somewhere a little boy who did not have to spend long weeks in the hospital battling whooping cough. Doll has even revived the time-honored tradition of house calls. "Many of my patients don't have phones," she explains. "So if I want to know what's really going on, sometimes I just have to drive out to their house and find out." Patients pay $5, or whatever they can afford, for an office visit. Occasionally, Doll has taken her fee in enchiladas. One of Doll's more successful forays involved a young mother and her baby girl, who did not show up at the clinic until the infant was six weeks old. "I realized the baby couldn't see," recalls Doll. "Her eyes didn't follow the movement of my hand in front of her face." In talking to the mother, Doll soon discovered that she could not see very well either, nor could the baby's older brother; they all suffered from congenital cataracts. An ophthalmic surgeon who flies in from Denver periodically agreed to operate on all three, but they kept missing their appointments. Finally, Doll drove out to their house and discovered the trouble: the mother did not want her children to wear glasses. After talking with Doll, the woman finally agreed to the surgery. "Now," Doll says, "everybody in that family can see."
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