Students from different majors actively participate in self-care and comprehensive health day

care day 1

The initiative corresponded to the CEC of Nursing, Kinesiology and Psychology and included actions such as first aid, posture and corporality workshops, deepening and others.

For a whole day, the activities of the self-care day for students of the University of La Serena "The Holistic Labyrinth of Health. Moving towards comprehensive health" were extended, which included talks and workshops held at the Isabel Bongard Campus of the house of studies, focused on different areas of interest and usefulness for university students.

care day 2The day was prepared for the young people by their own colleagues from the nursing, kinesiology and psychology student centers (CEC), with the support of the Center for Psychological Care and Comprehensive Health (CAPSI) of the ULS, the sponsorship of the General Directorate of Student Affairs (DGAE) and contributions from the schools of Nursing and Psychology and the Kinesiology major.

The actions developed in the Campus Amphitheater included the installation of information stands for the three majors, the DGAE and the Mining Circus, as well as talks and workshops (first aid, deepening, posture and corporality, etc.) held there. classroom and in the Teaching Support Center of the Faculty of Humanities (CADH).

Fernanda Castillo, coordinator of CAPSI and the activity, highlighted at the opening of the event that this unique initiative managed to unite careers, units and faculties of the institution in work for health, showing the importance of multidisciplinary work. 

care day 3Meanwhile, one of those in charge of logistics and organization, coordination of efforts and management of institutional resources was Julio Gutiérrez, a Psychology major at CAPSI, who highlighted the purpose of this initiative, which sought to cover a need in matter of stress in students, through these workshops.

The actions included in the program were very varied. As Giovanna Milla, a Nursing student, explained, during the morning, her classmates Valeria Ahumada and Diego Caroca presented ''an activity about the consumption of energy drinks and the risk that students have when combining them with medications, with alcohol, the high consumption that these have and how they physiologically impact our body. While in the afternoon, together with his partner Pablo Cataldo, it was his turn to lead a first aid workshop that addressed the management of wounds, burns, CPR and the Hemlich maneuver.

care day 4Sebastián Aldunate, a Kinesiology student at the University of La Serena, commented that at their stand they were ''explaining all the care in the studio, how to carry a backpack and when sitting at the desk in front of the computer. (…) For example, as a result of using only one arm of the backpack, we will be prone to having a deviation in the spine, which is called scoliosis. When we sit down, when we are at the desk, we tend to hunch back, which causes neck pain and, when we write or do computer work, we may be facing tendonitis.'' In this way, together with his colleagues they were contributing to treating these problems, teaching how to use the backpack (with the two arms and at the appropriate height), how to manipulate the keyboard and how to have a good posture when studying on the computer.

While Isis Rojas, also in her second year of Kinesiology, appreciated that these initiatives allow people to learn more about the role of the kinesiologist and the opportunity they were given to explain problems such as those mentioned by Sebastián, through anatomy and biomechanics, providing answers in a more scientific way to attendees. ''I think it will be a contribution, because in everyday life this will serve the comprehensive health of the students,'' she declared.

The young organizers were happy to work on comprehensive health from and for students, emphasizing promotion and prevention. Likewise, they called on other majors to join this initiative, which positively influences their development as students, performance in the major, and knowledge of the profession.