College of Nursing and Health | Photo by Jessica Fugett | The Wright State Guardian
Wright State University (WSU) sees more collaboration and participation amongst student nurses during a national nurse shortage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Changes in the department
The start of the pandemic caused a number of changes within the nursing department, according to the department chair, Dr. Ann Stalter.
Stalter said that nursing students were limited in clinical experience due to the shortage of personal protective gear (PPE) at the start of the pandemic. Students also shifted to an online portion and a higher workload was put on them. Educators also faced a higher workload.
“Before the lockdown, nurse educators were working up to 16 hour days preparing lectures, greeting, coordinating clinicals and working with the agencies,” Stalter said.
According to Stalter there is also a shortage of nursing faculty and nurses overall nationwide adding to this already high amount of work.
Stalter explained that a higher workload was also caused by nurses leaving due to vaccine mandates and having a higher number of patients during outbreaks, including the recent omicron outbreak.
Nursing student experience
These changes had made clinicals more collaborative. Stalter saw that nurses were more willing to collaborate and work as a team during clinical trials.
Collaboration was seen in clinical trials, however, student nurses did not have in-person classes or meetings prior to the fall 2021 semester.
The president of the Association of Student Nurses (ASN), Sabrina Flacke, stated that participation and members are increasing in ASN, but they are still working on increasing membership to prior pandemic levels.
“[We are] still working on recruiting people and getting people as active as they used to be,” Flacke said.
Flacke also explained that there is now an online simulation available should a student nurse become ill or cannot make a clinical.
Faculty experience
Some nursing faculty are hoping for a day when certain measures are able to be lifted.
Tyler Green, a clinical instructor at WSU, stated that he is not used to having mask mandates in place for mental healthcare settings as well since much of therapeutic communication is through facial expression.
“While masks play an important role in containing the spread of COVID, I am looking forward to a day where they are not necessary,” Green said.
COVID restrictions are still in place in healthcare settings across the United States even in counties that do not have indoor mask recommendations for business, according to the Center for Disease Control.
