UWEC CERCA 2025

For this clinical immersion, nursing students traveled ten hours to South Dakota to the Rosebud Indian Reservation, the second poorest region in the entire United States. They provided health education on topics that included Gestational Diabetes, Positivity in the Workplace, Compassion Fatigue, Postpartum care, and Postpartum Depression. In addition, they provided activities to address caring for the caregiver by teaching relaxation techniques and offering hand massages. Their leadership skills were evident in the public service announcements they recorded at the local tribal radio station, and in the professional brochures they distributed at community events. This partnership in Rosebud has spanned 20 years and evolved from a maternal rotation to a leadership-management clinical with the community as the client. Students are challenged to examine their preconceived ideas and assumptions about indigenous peoples and compare it to their lived experience in Rosebud. Many students have shared how this was a life-altering experience.