How COVID-19 is affecting our student nurses
Student nurses face a lot when it comes to juggling schoolwork and the clinical hours that are required by their school. Most of these hours require them to be in direct contact with patients. But with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, these hours became impossible to fulfill as students were prevented from returning to their designated hospitals as they had to make room for COVID patients and reduce the risk of transmission to students.
Many of these students were kept in limbo as their schools tried to find a solution for these students to make up their hours. Dennis Garcia, a nursing student from Cal State LA shared his concerns during this period of uncertainty.
“I was concerned about clinicals because we needed the hours to not only complete the required hours from the board of registered nurses (BRN) to move on to the next level but also having enough hands-on experience to practice the skills that we learned,” said Garcia. ”I was very anxious and stressed out in general because I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know if I should just stay on pause and wait for the next email to come, or if I should actively look for an alternative for me to practice for my own benefit.”
The Crisis At Hand
According to Inside Higher Ed, a survey conducted by the California Organization of Associate Degree Nursing found that many nursing schools in the state had more than half of their students displaced from clinical sites, as well as some schools reporting that 100% of their students were displaced.
“Everything just went from zero to 100, lectures got canceled, my job closed and they eventually canceled clinicals, so hospitals or clinical sites that Cal State LA has a contract with kicked out students because of the pandemic. It was just weird how everything happened so quickly,” said Garcia.
State law requires that nursing students must complete 75% of their clinical training in a health care setting such as hospitals or nursing homes approved by the board and the rest of the 25% can be made up through online simulation, such as case studies and skills modules.
With major hospital chains such as Kaiser Permanente, Adventist Health and Dignity Health temporarily discontinuing student clinical rotations for the rest of the semester, nursing schools across the state are left scrambling to find alternatives for their students to make up these hours.
The Solution in Focus
Fortunately, for some of these students, USC Verdugo Hills Hospital has provided a way for these students to make up their clinical hours by allowing them to volunteer through what is called the “Care Extender Clinical Experience”.
Under this program, student nurses volunteer in various departments throughout the hospital and assist staff, as well as some patients. Students are also required to sign a contract which states their duties and responsibilities, as well as attend a mandatory orientation before volunteering.
A Closer Look
These student nurses work a 12-hour shift and are moved throughout various units in the hospital. To maintain social distancing guidelines, two students are placed per unit. In addition, masks are mandatory for everyone in the hospital.
The hospital had some isolated COVID positive patients, as well as PUIs (people under investigation) which are those who are under observation for the virus due to the symptoms they have manifested upon admission to the hospital. Students were not told who was positive or if they were PUI due to HIPAA guidelines. Nonetheless, students were reassured that they would not be expected to take care of these patients.
Jenny Yu, a clinical instructor from Cal State LA, as well as a nurse practitioner, shares her thoughts on how her students are handling this transition.
“Even though the contract with the USC Verdugo Hills Hospital is volunteer-based, the students are still able to apply the skills that they have learned in this situation and still be able to build that trust with the nurses they shadowed for,” said Yu. “Students are also learning to adapt to this new atmosphere. Everybody is so cautious, so that’s part of the knowledge they have gained when being faced with a completely different atmosphere that they were used to back then.”
Garcia mentioned how the protocol hasn’t changed much in this new learning atmosphere, other than masks are required and that they have to be very cautious and mindful of their surroundings.
“Our instructor really helped us put things into perspective. We had a Zoom meeting where she went over our concerns and what she thinks of the situation. Since we’re aspiring to become a nurse, it’s a commitment,” said Garcia.
Additionally, Garcia also said this experience was completely new to him and that he’s never experienced something like this before, though he anticipates the possibility of it happening again. He sees this as a good opportunity to be out in the field and see what it looks like during a pandemic.
When asked how the health care worker industry is being challenged due to the virus, Yu said, “there’s not enough information. A lot of fear. Fear is real. But the thing is that there’s always new information coming out every day, which makes everyone worried. It’s very unknown.”
Despite these challenges, Yu believes that it’s important for these student nurses to learn even when presented with this new atmosphere.
“This pandemic can happen again, It’s important to be teaching these future nurses how to handle these types of situations so when it does happen again, they’ll be prepared with the knowledge that we are teaching them,” said Yu.
