With the current challenges facing healthcare and the world, we want to shine a light on the students and new nurses who are coming into the field during this unprecedented time.

We hope to raise awareness of their situations and help to amplify what needs to be done to ensure that nurses feel comfortable and supported in the healthcare field.

Situations cannot change with truth. We hope their stories will resonate with you and can create change within the field of nursing.

This is the second video in our series where we bring these students’ experiences to you.

[Transcript]

Victoria
One of the biggest challenges, and it's similar to what everyone is facing is just that kind of isolation. There's a little bit anxiety and stress around it because you want to be the best nurse you can be and you really have to shift your learning style and what you're taking into this whole virtual world of learning because you still want to learn as much as you can. So again, you can be the best news you can be shortly down the line. It's really about taking all that in and taking it really seriously so you can be out there in the field frontline helping patients, you know, right after graduation.

Caroline
I think one way that I've definitely seen like the COVID pandemic affecting my learning, especially is like the staffing ratios at the hospital right now, especially the one where I am like, are like, relatively bad. For instance, on a unit with like 20 beds, there's like one picture.

And luckily, since we're there, like about a group of eight students, they're like ”yay, like nursing students here, like they can do vitals and stuff”, which is really helpful for them. But I do think that I see how people are just getting burned out and like nurses are unfortunately having to take on like larger patient loads and the PCT have to do much more than they should. But I think it's been a really great learning opportunity because we're given so much autonomy because there is a need for us to be there. I found that when I'm in the hospital taking care of like, we get assigned one patient for the day.

There's rarely a time besides, like a couple of times, and the nurse comes in like anyone else is really caring for the patient. So I feel like I've gotten to do a lot of what the patient needs care wise. So that's the nice. But it's also just been, I guess, hard to see the people working like tirelessly like week after week. Like you go in and it's like, Oh yeah, there's only one PCT here again and like versus there should be three. So I think that's been hard.

Fernanda
There have been a lot of changes, and with change comes new learning. We've had to have a lot of training done in areas that we did not have. Now, most nurses have been trained to at least be familiar with this kind of drips since their new technology as well. Like, have these telephones, we can watch telemetry reminders through the phone, we can get phone calls from doctors, we can communicate with each other that way, making things a lot easier. Also, the in-services, there's been more in-services and make everybody more comfortable with things that normally you wouldn't see.

Olivia
I think in the beginning we were as students. We were pretty frustrated because it just felt like Amy were obviously not getting the same experience as we would in the classroom, just interaction-wise. And I think, you know, it was hard because the lectures, the way they were doing it, it was just not suitable for what we were going through. And I think that was the hardest part of getting our professors to understand where we were coming from. That and obviously it was hard for them to adapt to this different type of learning and use different types of technology. But we need to adjust the program together and make it more suitable for the type of learning that we're having. So that was definitely the hardest thing. And then just dealing with Wi-Fi, like making sure it wasn't breaking down where you were in the middle of the class because now at the same time, four people could be on the Wi-Fi.

So there's just like a lot of little things that you've just never had to consider before that we're now becoming issues. It's just hard to kind of balance that new type of learning and get our professors to understand that. But eventually we kind of worked it out towards the end with the right people in charge. And I think there was a lot of help there, but at first it was really a rocky start for that aspect of it.