Nursing programs stress flexibility to cope with pandemic
EDITOR’S NOTE: College nursing programs continue to face unprecedented challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused drastic shifts in the way students learn and strained health care systems. This is the next installment in a continuing series of articles on the pandemic’s lasting impact from the standpoint of nursing instructors at Henderson State University.
ARKADELPHIA — At a time when educators’ skills and patience are needed the most as they maneuver through uncertain times, maintaining flexibility and adaptability while reassuring their students is imperative in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, nursing instructors say.
Transitioning to remote learning is particularly challenging for nursing students, who are required to earn their clinical hours and attain real-world experience. As a vast portion of those students works to take care of patients, in addition to themselves and their families, the role of nurses has never been as important.
Janna Lock, coordinator of Henderson State University’s RN to BSN program, said due to the continuation of the COVID-19 pandemic, the faculty is regularly making adjustments for their students.
“You know, being a caring faculty, you have to realize that our students are not always able to make their deadlines,” she said. “And so you can’t be so stringent that that is going to prohibit them from graduating.
“We’re flexible enough and we understand what life — life happens, and pandemics do not happen very often. But our one and only goal is to make sure our students are successful. And — whatever that takes, I think that’s made us very successful
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and, you know, truthfully, 99% of our graduates have made it through, have done really well, and I really think that is partly because we are able to be flexible when they need to be helped,” Lock said.
Carrie Flora, director of the undergraduate nursing program, said this idea extends to those nursing students who may be quarantined and live off-campus.
“As long as they’re feeling well enough, we do offer them the opportunity to not miss class by joining Zoom, because we don’t want them to miss out on that information,” she said. “So that they can still be successful. And we meet with them outside of class if the skills are a checkoff — that kind of thing — and then try to make up the clinical to the best of our ability.”
She said they try to be flexible because “it’s outside of our control. We still want them to be successful in the program.”
The department has been pleasantly surprised at the number of positive attributes to come out of the combining of online and in-person training, Flora said, noting now that their partnerships are back open to the students and they are able to go to clinicals again, they have integrated parts of the online simulation experience because of its success.
“That was a positive for us and we really learned from that experience that there were a lot of things that we could integrate to make their clinical experience more enriched by using that technology,” she said. “So I would say that’s one of the really positive things that’s come out of COVID, I think, in a world of negatives — it feels like sometimes that’s what we focus on.”
Flora said another positive aspect came from the decision to use Zoom for lectures.
“We had learned that if we can give them the lectures online, then they can come back to class and we can do a learning activity with that,” she said. “Or, maybe something that’s more of a simulation where they can reinforce that information and apply that knowledge, versus just listening to us standing up in front of the room. So a lot of the teaching strategies and things that we will learn from COVID have come back to be a positive impact for good change.”
The idea of online communication applies not only to learning and training, but to the health profession itself in telehealth. As a critical technological component during the pandemic, telehealth allows sick people to stay in their homes, while granting some relief to health care providers on the front lines. HSU director of the graduate nursing program, Allison Divine, noted the significance telehealth has played, especially for the program’s family nurse practitioners.
“It really made us embrace telehealth and how important telehealth is in today’s age,” she said. “And I see that continuing well after the COVID crisis ends. You know, a lot of patients, especially those living in rural areas, embrace the ability to see their providers via telehealth. And so I think that is a major positive that we will all walk away from this experience with.”