Community Based Experience | kristaplogger-mph669

Medical Reserve Corps – Virginia Department of Health

“The Virginia Medical Reserve Corps (MRC) is a force of dedicated volunteers who stand ready to support the community in the event of a public health emergency. Each of the 22 local MRC units across Virginia are comprised of teams of medical and public health professionals who, along with interested non-medical community members, volunteer their skills, expertise and time to support ongoing public health initiatives and health emergencies throughout Virginia.”
https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/mrc/

I was able to gain hands on experience during the very beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic as an MRC volunteer with the Virginia Department of Health. I volunteered as a Contact Tracer and for local drive-thru testing events. I gained valuable skills through working as a Contact Tracer volunteer where I called individuals who were identified as exposed to COVID-19 to inform of potential exposure. I also collected and recorded information for the Sara Alert monitoring system to track development of illness post exposure. Through this experience I was able to provide community members with information regarding state quarantine procedures and referred to testing according to current guidance. This was such a great entry experience into the public health field. This experience eventually led me to working in my current position at Chesterfield Health Department and I could not be more grateful for both the skills and opportunity it provided me.

Volunteering with MRC Summer of 2020 – COVID19 Testing Event

Nanny Experience

I worked as a nanny for a family with young children from September of 2016 to July of 2020. Through this experience I gained valuable knowledge in working with children, which has led me to currently have a well rounded skill set in communicating and interacting with young children. In March 2020, the world began to shut down due to COVID-19 and I found myself completing my final semester of undergrad with a focus in public health. I continued to watch the children throughout the beginning times of social distancing measures and decided to incorporate mini public health lessons into our daily routine; one of which was hand washing.