Alternative health

The Duncan Banner

DUNCAN March 11, 2008 01:53 pm

— If faced with a choice between amputation and an alternative therapy involving maggots, which would you choose?
Most people would be willing to let the larvae take the reins as opposed to losing a limb. And, while the methodology is available, many don’t know it’s an option, leaving them with only the alternative.
Educating hospitals and their nursing staff in the use of maggots in wound care was one goal of a booth set up Thursday afternoon at Duncan Regional Hospital.
The question, posed by University of Oklahoma nursing students, was part of a semester project that required them to research a problem or question facing hospitals and suggest a way to implement solutions to the issue.
Billy Mercer, a student who worked on the Maggot Debridement Therapy project, said one of the main obstacles in administering the therapy is getting over the stigma attached to maggots and educating people that it exists.
“The bad thing right now is that there are people out there that have wounds like this and don’t know about this,” he said, noting that the maggots are a certain variety, sterile and consume only dead and diseased tissue.
Other student groups looked at issues such as the relationship between fewer errors made by night-shift nurses who exercise as compared to those who don’t, and how chewing gum can positively affect a patient after abdominal surgery.
“We’ve done this project for about the last three years,” said Heather Love, OU nursing assistant professor.
It’s the first time the students have brought their findings to DRH, though.
“This project, more than anything, helps them learn to work in a team. The reality is, in nursing, that’s what they’re going to be doing on a daily basis — working on teams with nurses,” Love said.
The topics the students research and explore come from problems and questions facing hospital staff today.
For the students, the project was an opportunity to help find solutions and new methods to addressing problems, and an opportunity to experience what they will be doing once they are graduated and working.
“It was very, very challenging,” said student Stephanie Weimer.
“The future of nursing is with evidence-based practice. And, it’s through students like us that we’re able to communicate that with our hospitals.”