NUHS Florida interns recently provided nursing students at St. Petersburg College (SPC) with a clinic tour and an informative talk to help them better understand complementary and alternative medicine.

Since the NUHS Florida-Site is part of the University Partnership Center at SPC, interns benefit from integrative educational opportunities with students from other schools and health care disciplines.

NUHS clinician Erika Hackett, DC, said the event helped interns become more comfortable approaching and collaborating with other health care practitioners.

“Students were able to see what other health care providers were concerned about or don’t understand. Many people, even in health care, often have no idea of the wide range of conditions we can treat, or the many methods/techniques we have available,” Dr. Hackett said.

During the event, NUHS interns discussed how chiropractic medicine treats common injuries experienced by nurses such as upper crossed/lower crossed syndromes, poor posture and carpal tunnel syndrome. NUHS interns also shared self-care tips along with nutritional advice.

Mandi Rosenquist, an NUHS chiropractic medicine intern, said interacting with the nursing students reminded her how important it is to educate and spread the word to others about chiropractic medicine.

“I learned a lot about how chiropractic can help people in similar professions, including posture corrections, nutrition and self-care,” she said.

Since SPC students are able to get free treatment at the NUHS Whole Health Center in Pinellas Park, NUHS interns demonstrated various modalities they can provide like cupping along with various adjustment techniques. They also spoke about other alternative medicine fields like naturopathic medicine.

“The nurses were very receptive and open to what we have to offer, and several came down to our clinic and made appointments immediately,” Rosenquist

said. “I have treated a few of them since then.”

Dr. Hackett said they hope to schedule even more events like this one with other SPC students in the future.

“People on campus seem to be very receptive to it.”