“Along Came Covid” - A BSN Student's View of the Pandemic Nursing Experience

Are you a “Class of Covid-19” nursing student or grad?
Share your experience with your peers, and tell us what it was like to be a student at your school during a global pandemic.
Did the experience affect your career goals? Has it changed or reinforced your ideas about what it means to be a nurse? Did it change your life? To share your story with other nurses, students, and prospective nursing students, submit a 400-800 word post to [email protected].

As I began my nursing education in 2018 at Widener University, I started out as most college students with core curriculum. I had no idea where I was headed with my nursing career during my first two years of college. After my sophomore year, I began working as a patient care technician in the float pool at a busy community hospital. This opportunity led me to experience patients from the emergency room, medical-surgical units, telemetry units and the ICU/critical care floor. Although I gained knowledge from each floor, I especially enjoyed my workdays when assigned to the ICU/critical care floor. It was in the ICU that I found the most challenging yet rewarding patient care experiences – then along came COVID.

“I called a rapid response that quickly turned into a code. I was able to perform chest compressions during CPR. The code team, including myself, was able to regain a heart rate and pulse…. Three weeks later, I became emotional wheeling him out upon discharge from a medical-surgical unit…”

As a 20-year-old student at the time, this pandemic has not only changed the way I practice nursing but the way I have continued in my studies as a nursing student. Although my junior year of nursing was online and lacked the traditional clinical experience, I worked hard and was able to seek out educational experiences as a patient care technician that will make me a skilled practitioner in the near future. I can see the toll COVID has taken on nurses who began their careers before the pandemic. They are burned out and exhausted. As a daughter of two ER nurses and the sister of a critical care nurse, I am lucky to have been supported and encouraged to pursue my end goal of eventually becoming an ICU nurse in a cardiothoracic unit.

Working through COVID and seeing many situations that were dire, regardless of the amount of experience or medications administered, was sometimes hard to endure. I learned how to be empathetic to patients and their families via facetime, phone calls, or just holding a hand in need. One COVID patient has stuck out since I left my shift back in June 2020. Upon walking into his room, I could see he was in severe distress. I called a rapid response that quickly turned into a code. I was able to perform chest compressions during CPR. The code team, including myself, was able to regain a heart rate and pulse. The patient was transferred to the ICU where I was able to visit him on my next shift. It was hard to see someone I had established a rapport with require so much medical care. Three weeks later, I became emotional wheeling him out upon discharge from a medical-surgical unit, while listening to the Rocky theme song “Eye of the Tiger” playing over the loudspeaker.

“Every patient has a story, and every story has a face.”

Going to work is a different experience every day. It has taught me that every patient has a story, and every story has a face. Not only do I have a supportive family in the medical field, but I also have found mentors within the school of nursing at Widener. Professor Mary Marquis is someone who has become a mentor of mine due to her passion for nursing and her ability to communicate her knowledge of the human body and diseases in an easy and understandable way. Professor Marquis uses acronyms and analogies that made learning not only easy, but fun! She pushed me to find the nurse that I will become.