Dr. Brandy E Strahan

Exposure to sunlight can be pleasant and healthy; however, too much sun exposure can be dangerous. Skin cancer is the most common cancer with over 5 million cases diagnosed each year in the United States. Northwest Florida has ultraviolet indices ranging from 2-3 in December and January to 10+ in the summer months. Additionally, the panhandle has seen an increase in the rate of melanoma from 2004-2014 and have higher incidences than the state. Overexposure can have serious health consequences, including skin cancer and other skin disorders, retinal damage and cataracts, and immune system suppression. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that U.S. teens had rates of sunscreen use at only 7-13% during more than an hour of exposure on a sunny day, and had sunburn rates at approximately 33% during the past year. Florida school-aged children can spend an abundant amount of time outdoors during recess, physical education classes, and extracurricular activities. Thus, sun protection education is needed since unprotected exposure during youth places them at an increased life-time risk for skin cancer. The purpose of this project was to promote sun healthy behaviors to local elementary and middle school students utilizing evidence based messaging and achieve clinical course learning outcomes for pre-licensure students.

Nursing is a physically and emotionally demanding profession that can be stressful and overwhelming, yet extremely rewarding. Compassion fatigue, first coined by Joinson (1992) referencing nursing burnout, is the stress resulting from continued exposure to traumatized patients and multidimensional stress; whereas, compassion satisfaction, as described by Phelps et. al (2009) is the positivity of caring for others. Although these two concepts have been studied in numerous nursing populations, such as critical care, emergency department, hospice, and oncology, none have examined these concepts among nursing students.