Nursing students’ perspective on a public health-informed fall term at U-M

A few weeks into the 2020 fall term, we asked undergraduate students at the University of Michigan School of Nursing to share their thoughts on returning to campus for a public health-informed fall term and discuss what it’s like to be back living and learning in Ann Arbor from the unique perspective of a nursing student.

Brea Cole

How does it feel being back on campus? Do you feel safe?

• At the School of Nursing, I think we're handling it well. I only have an in-person class once a week, and the building seems pretty empty, so I think we’ve done a good job maintaining social distancing and adjusting to the new safety precautions coming in.
  
  I feel safe here and I like in person learning. I feel I'm more attentive during class, but it can be a little confusing. We have one in-person class and one that’s not, so that can throw off your schedule and make you a little confused on what days you're supposed to be here and what days you're supposed to be at home.

How do you feel about the new safety protocols and procedures that have been put in place?

• I feel like all of it is necessary. Especially if you want to finish your degree on time, you want to do your best to stay healthy throughout this year and finish strong. Nobody wants to miss two weeks of clinical or maybe more. I feel like as a nursing student, they're not asking too much. If anything, they could be asking more of us if they really wanted.

Did you want to come back to campus? Why was that important to you, especially as a nursing student?

• I can't imagine doing my last year of nursing school completely online with no clinical experiences. As U-M nursing students, what separates us from the rest are our clinical experiences at University Hospital. If we didn't have that this year, I feel like we wouldn't gain the kind of experience we expected. I want this experience — we all do, and I’m glad we have the chance to do it. I think that they did their absolute best to do it this year.

Do you have any concerns about continuing your nursing education this fall?

• While we all have different ideas on how the term should be run, I think we just want it to continue no matter what. We might have different plans on how this might have been implemented, but I think we're all just going to follow it because we want to be here and we want to finish our senior year and graduate on time. I feel like a lot of us were nervous that clinicals would be pushed back and we’d possibly have to come back for another semester, so we're doing everything we can to graduate on time.

Robin Jackson and Meghan Rysztak 

How does it feel being back on campus?

• Meghan: It definitely feels good to be back, especially in the clinical setting. We lost half of our clinical training last year, so it’s been good to learn from our nurse mentors and get back to patient care. It can be difficult to maintain social distancing in clinical, because you want to talk with your nurse mentor all the time, and you want to compare experiences with your peers, but our professor always reminds us to stay distanced, which helps.
   

• Robin: I actually haven't left campus, so I got to see this whole transition. I work at the hospital and I’ve been here all summer, so I could see the transition from campus being completely empty to people starting to come back. I feel like they’re handling it well, at least for us. I was frustrated last year when our clinicals were cut short, but now we get to have these experiences, because you can't get a nursing degree without having clinical, right?

How do you feel about the new safety protocols and procedures that have been put in place?

• Robin: It all makes sense. They’re not just picking something out and saying “oh, we're just going to do this right now.” No, it makes sense. Just wear a mask, wash your hands, do the ResponsiBlue check and just social distance. It's not anything crazy.
  
  Masks and social distancing work — it's all for the better, but it’s dependent on people abiding by those rules. I think like we could be better about mask wearing; that's the one major thing I don't see people doing all the time. It’s not for just your benefit but for the benefit of other people, so just wear it.
   
• Meghan: Everything they’re doing, I think there’s a purpose for it. Some people may find it more difficult, but for us in the School of Nursing, it's really easy to understand that wearing a mask protects us and protects our patients. They're also trying to help students find ways to get out of their dorm and still be safe, which is nice.
  
  I think nursing students are more aware of actually following these protocols because we are going into the hospital, we're interacting with patients who, if they get sick, they could die. So following these protocols is especially important for nursing students because we are interacting with those who might be immunocompromised.

Do you think it’s important for you to be here on campus, especially as a nursing student?

• Robin: Even though I was on campus the entire time, I was holding my breath that we were going to be allowed to return back and classes were going to resume. If we don't have our clinicals or that learning time in person, we could possibly fall behind in our curriculum. I need this. I need to be here, so I am going to follow the rules. I love this university, but I'm an out of state student and I don’t really want to spend more money if I don’t have to.

Shannon McNeely

How does it feel being back on campus with the new safety protocols and procedures that have been put in place?

• I feel pretty normal, honestly. I think they've made it safe based on the amount of people in classrooms. We have a discussion section with fewer than 25 people, they split us up and we're all sitting separately, so I feel comfortable being back.
  
  We all seem to adhere the guidelines, and so far the School of Nursing has made it pretty easy for us, and they’ve provided a lot of resources for us, so that’s been good.
   

Did you want to come back to campus? Why was that important to you, especially as a nursing student?

• I can only speak for myself, but we desperately wanted to come back and finish out our senior year without graduation getting delayed. I think most of our class cohort feels the same. This is what we're going into; this is the profession, and we just have to make it work. In nursing, we're always adapting, evolving and learning how to be flexible, so it's good practice.
  
  For classes, I'm flexible with them either being online hybrid or in person. However, with clinicals, there's not a lot of flexibility. You can't get that clinical experience online. It's very valuable, so I'm glad we're here in person for this.

Nick Similuk

How does it feel being back on campus?

• It’s good to be back. There’s a sense of normalcy, and being physically back in the School of Nursing definitely helps. I just feel like I learn better in person than online.

Do you feel safe?

• With all of the precautions so far like screenings at the door, classes being spread out and all of us separated, I feel pretty safe here. And then even in our clinical settings, when we're either in the hospital or out in a community, I feel pretty safe, too.

How do you feel about the new safety protocols and procedures that have been put in place?

• I think the good thing is it doesn't feel like it's a lot, right? It's not too much of a hindrance where you're completely changing everything you have to do. My routine is pretty much the same, just one or two extra things that you have to be cognizant of. It's all pretty straightforward stuff that isn't that big of a deal.

Did you want to come back to campus? Why was that important to you, especially as a nursing student?

• It was definitely imperative for us, at least as seniors, to be back right now. We have so many clinical hours we have to get done and so much to do before we take our board exams. I think now is the most important time for us to be in person. I need to get all of this done so that I can be ready to pass my boards come June of next year. For me, coming back was just something that needed to be done.