Trends & Issues in Pre-licensure Nursing Education

Will you be vaccinated?

9/4/2020

NSNA is conducting a survey asking students the following questions:

Will you be vaccinated when COVID-19 vaccine becomes available?

Will you help vaccinate the public?

Do you have adequate PPE for clinical assignments?

How much in-person clinicals will you have in Spring 2021 semester?

Please share your COVID-19 stories and concerns.

We are in the process of collecting the data--and so far I am surprised at the responses.

Stay tuned for the results which will be published in the November/December 2020 issue of Imprint.

Share your stories on this blog.

12 Comments

Kara Fenne

9/15/2020 11:57:42 am

I appreciate you bringing up this topic. We had 24 pediatric clinical spots for 71 students. We have chosen to augment with Vsim, so that students still have a patient, have to complete the same clinical paperwork and debrief just as in person clinical. Clinical placement was already a challenge in that students are much more limited to what skills they can do, and I anticipate it will continue to be a problem securing sites moving forward. It is time our profession considers innovative ways to allow students to practice clinical reasoning and critical thinking without being limited by facilities. The disconnect between student nurse preparation and nurse professional practice is obvious. How do we provide safe nurse generalist new graduates when institutions have become so limiting in allowing the next generation to train there?

Lyla Taft

9/22/2020 11:25:01 am

Fortunately, the local hospital is allowing students back for the Fall semester. The hospital is requiring students to bring their own mask and face shield or goggles. This semester, the hospital was generous enough to provide all the students with a face shield; but the student is responsible for keeping up with this and replacing it if it is lost/damaged. Out of caution, my class has reduced the number of students allowed in each clinical group. Other outpatient facilities that we also use for clinicals have limited the number of students allowed in at one time. For my class, half the students will be at the hospital one week while the other half stay home and complete v-sims and case studies. Thankfully, the local hospital also has a brand new simulation lab that they allow students to come to for lab experiences. And for spring and summer graduates that had their clinical rotations cut short due to COVID, the local hospital is require these graduates to complete several weeks worth of skills training in the simulation lab to help them hone missed skills before working on the floor (and the local hospital also has a nurse residency program for new grads).

Stacy Slater

9/22/2020 12:31:35 pm

In addition to the many clinical and didactic challenges our students are also unable to find service learning volunteer opportunities (required for graduation) and fundraising activities. Fundraising is crucial for the students to be able to fund attending conferences - even if there is no travel involved.

Diane Mancino link

9/26/2020 12:28:45 am

Stacy: During the Virtual School Presidents' Forum this month, several students shared the community projects they are doing virtually. Here's the recording link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFQcTcE-Lko&feature=youtu.be
For example, the chapter hooked up with a social services agency for the elderly and the students got assigned to an older person who was homebound to call periodically. That is just one example.

Stacy slater

10/26/2020 09:54:35 am

Thank you Diane we will look into this. Since my original post our local Health Dept has opened up their flu clinics and is allowing our nursing students to volunteer.

Rita Ciccone

9/30/2020 03:44:57 pm

We too had issues with our students being unable to find service hours as everything was cancelled. We haven't even thought about fundraising for this year yet.

Diane Mancino link

10/14/2020 01:48:29 pm

Wow--what a year this is turning out to be--and if you're like me--you can't wait until it's over! Students and faculty are doing their best to manage the fall semester with virtual learning and both live and simulated clinicals.

NSNA has heard that students and faculty are not permitted to travel both this fall and next spring semesters. I would like to hear from you if this is the rule in your school. This information is important to NSNA as we plan for the 69th Annual NSNA Convention next April.

Stacy Slater

10/26/2020 09:57:47 am

We have already been instructed that our campus will be participating virtually for Spring 2021

Colleen O'Leary-Kelley

10/27/2020 03:54:15 pm

We have also been told that our campus will continue with virtual classes for Spring 2021. I'm hopeful that Fall 2021 will include a return to in person classes. It's really difficult to run a prelicensure program with limited clinical sites and skills lab opportunities for students.

Janice Edmonson

10/27/2020 04:16:08 pm

Most of our clinical sites are allowing students to return to the facilities with their own face shield. My psychiatric hospital performs a screening and provides a required surgical mask upon arrival each day. Because other schools have put clinical attendance on hold, I have plenty of space for students without using COVID units. Our expert faculty leadership developed Alternate Assignments online for students who must self-quarantine. We are committed to providing 50% or more face-to-face clinical hours.

Tammy W. Howard

10/27/2020 07:26:48 pm

We of course, like most, finished out spring online including simulations and clinicals. Huge amount of work. No way to totally make up for the observation of the experienced nurse modeling management of the OB patient...
Summer opened up somewhat so our 2nd degree students were able to do some last semester clinicals in July before graduating in August.
Fall - my plan was get all students some experiences by rotating all students quickly and before fall break. That worked while we constantly juggled who was in quarantine along with the small amount of positive covid cases. Our students took it seriously and avoided exposure pretty well so they could do inpatient clinicals. They put off family visits etc. to keep exposures lower...

Of course some areas are not available - which has changed community health course greatly as well as no LTC experiences and reduced mental health experiences available as well.

This fall the hospital based clinicals we did have scheduled has now become impacted by rising covid designated units being opened pushing regular admissions out and reducing units available for students - so some are now at risk of not having clinical rotations this fall...

I am glad I went with my plan to get as much early as possible and be out of the hospital by this time when we got notification that we would be able to have inpatient OB clinicals at our agencies... However, spring again has so many unknowns with expected units being designated covid as winter/flu season and the expected covid spike is expected... Will probably have multiple plans including online simulations/labs. We have done online labs/simulations for any labs they didn't need to do hands-on skills such as IV push or IV pump use, newborn assessment etc. & small group socially distanced/masks for any hands-on simulation or lab.

However, all the zoom time (reduced movement) is very hard on the body!

I think spring will be a continued "juggling of balls in the air" just trying to get healthy students/non-quarantine students through what inpatient clinicals are available...

Pamela Rollins

11/24/2020 10:58:35 am

It is important to think about a variety of options for Public/Community Health experiences for students. As a faculty member with about 40 years of Public Health experience, I would suggest a shift in thinking to the Systems and Policy levels. Examples: Policy related to visitors for LTC facilities with training materials for staff, based on regulatory information; Informational materials that can be distributed to community-dwelling seniors that typically frequent Senior Centers in relation to use of Meeting Platforms (Zoom, FaceTime, etc) to reduce social isolations. There are many more of these types of projects that students can do that could have a significant impact of targeted and at-risk populations.

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