Nursing in Barrow

I recently received a fax from State Epidemiology in Anchorage, letting me know that a physician’s assistant at the hospital here in Barrow had faxed in a required report on a patient she admitted who she believed had typhoid fever.   Several family members had acute symptoms and were being tested also.   Health care providers as well as pilots and ship captains are required by law to report any suspicion or knowledge of a person with a communicable infectious disease.   The report was surprising since typhoid fever is found in tropical countries, is rare in the United States and non-existent in Barrow, Alaska.   I was asked to interview the suspected cases, write a report and fax it back to Epidemiology who keep track of all occurrences of these sorts of diseases in the State of Alaska and assist in preventing their spreading.   After pulling each of the persons’ charts and running and reviewing health histories on them from our shared data base with the h...

…thankfully latent though, discovered by a positive skin test with an induration measuring 15 mm.   The Filipino man whose arm I was examining had never tested positive and was dismayed that I wasn’t able to give him the normal paper indicating that there was no evidence of TB that he would be able to present at his work place.   He is employed by the organization here that cares for children who have been either temporarily taken from their parents or given up.   Children stay there while their parents undergo treatment and prove that they’re able to parent successfully and others who have been given up, until others in the community are approved to foster or adopt them.   Having TB would prevent him from working with children, so he was relieved when he learned that I’d also screen him for symptoms of TB, coughing accompanied by blood, night sweats, weight loss, and chest pain, and if none were present, give him clearance for work and that he would be required to ...