School of Nursing During COVID
Everyone has been affected by COVID-19 and the school of nursing is no exception. Three nursing students shared their view on how nursing school has been.
COVID-19 has pushed and tested everyone’s limits. In the past year we have been in a global pandemic due to COVID-19 also known as the Coronavirus. We have been stuck in quarantine and isolation from one another for over half a year. Some areas still remain in isolation. There are many different perspectives of the pandemic. The few that are focused on today will be nursing students.
The nursing students that were interviewed come from two different programs or schools of nursing. Ashley Ducre, who is a student at Southeastern Louisiana University, as well as Alanna Coward and Brittnee Bell, who are Southern University students, discussed their experiences during this unprecedented time.
Each of these women are going to nursing school with their own goals in mind. Ducre has chosen to pursue travel nursing with a focus on pediatrics. Coward aspires to become a pediatric nurse practitioner. Bell wants to do nursing and nutrition studies.
In terms of how has COVID-19 affected nursing school for them, it has been an interesting experience for everyone including these women. Bell said, “COVID-19 made it harder for me to have a personal connection with my teachers and connect with my course material.”
On that same topic of course material was being affected. Coward spoke about how it affected her clinicals. “I had the option to go to class in person or go virtually. If we were in person we had to wear masks and skip seats and rows. I think clinicals were the most affected because we missed a couple clinical days that were supposed to be in person but ended up being virtual,” she said. So, due to some changes and circumstances some days she would have to miss clinicals and they become virtual days of class.
Clinicals are a very important learning experience for nursing students. On the other hand, a deeper understanding of viruses was learned by Ducre. She said,, “Covid has made it both an incredibly difficult time to be in nursing school and an incredible time to be in school. We’re learning about disease processes while being in a pandemic. We learned how vaccines work and how they’re made. As we watched that happen, it just made life a learning experience for this.”
All three women noted they view the pandemic as a learning experience, which is a positive way to see what’s going on and a great way to move forward.
In terms of whether it was an “easy process” following the rules and guidelines dealing with COVID-19, across the board they all seemed to have gotten used to the way things became. With that being said though it was easy to follow the rules, it made it difficult in other aspects of their classes. Bell Claims it was easy to follow the rules and guidelines, “but there are more errors than necessary in my everyday education. Internet connections can go in and out and it’s not a reliable source of communicating with your students. I personally feel as if I have been taught to pass tests rather than to apply my clinical skills and education into everyday life.” Bell feels as though her skills clinically are suffering because of the restrictions. Ducre follows the rules and guidelines and feels that they’re quite simple to follow as well. She says, “Following the COVID guidelines have been pretty easy in the real world settings, but when it comes to the hospital, it’s never that easy. You’ve got patients who are hard of hearing, those who have anxiety being surrounded by medical equipment, and to come in dressed head to toe in protective equipment and see the sadness on their faces hurts sometimes. Ultimately the focus is on keeping everyone safe, but it really takes out the opportunity to be personable with your patients.” I know it must be hard especially for someone just coming into nursing to have to deal with that.
I enjoyed interviewing with these ladies and getting to know how things were. I’m especially glad to get the individual perspective of everything. This was just a little taste of how COVID-19 has affected some schools of nursing.
