In a recent PSA the governor put out a call for volunteers including students and retired healthcare workers to help our state during this pandemic.
With universities doing virtually learning, that means nursing seniors in need of clinical hours have to do things differently.
“It’s definitely scary, I don’t think if you asked me a month ago when I was on spring break I would’ve been in this situation,” Quinnipiac nursing student Kyle Dineen said.
Dineen is set to graduate from Quinnipiac University’s School of Nursing in May.
His last semester that would’ve been filled with hands on clinicals is now turned to virtual ones.
“They are pretty interactive and pretty thorough too and we follow like the journey of a patient so it’s almost like having a regular patient and then we do virtual stimulations and we do debriefs with our clinical instructor,” Dineen said.
“Fortunately the senior students were about 50 percent through the semester with their clinical hours,” Dean for the School of Nursing Lisa Rebeschi said
It’s an adjustment nursing educators across the state have had to make, training the next generation of nurses in the midst of a pandemic, an impact dean Lisa Rebeschi is yet to be determined.
“I will tell you nursing education virtual simulation is very robust and at Quinnipiac we have a very strong simulation program.
Rebeschi who is also the president elect for the Connecticut League for Nursing says the state board has approved for students to be able to get their hours done virtually in order to graduate and take their license test.
While this is not how he imagined things happening, Dineen recently accepted a position upon graduation at Saint Francis hospital’s ICU.
“I think its definitely nerve wracking but I like to think of it as I’ve always wanted to be a nurse and wanting to help and this is kind of what I signed up for,”.
Those with medical backgrounds interested in volunteering you can visit ctresponds.ct.gov for more information.