‘We all just went charging towards this monster…’

We’ve all seen the photos of nurses in PPE providing care to patients who are obviously very ill with COVID-19. These nurses have justifiably received recognition and accolades for their commitment to duty under the most challenging circumstances and often at great personal risk.

I recently spoke with Megan Brunson, the president of the American Association of Critical-Care Nurses (AACN), who is also a supervisor in the cardiovascular ICU at Medical City Dallas Hospital.

Brunson described her own experiences, but also what she was hearing from her colleagues as they all “just went charging towards this monster called COVID.” She also talked about how the organization was rapidly developing resources, not only for clinical care but to help nurses deal with emotional stress. One initiative is partnering with DearWorld.org to create a collection of portraits and stories from nurses caring for patients with COVID-19.

Disrupting work in many settings.

But it behooves us to realize that this pandemic has not caused stress and critical challenges just for acute care nurses; nurses in many settings have been challenged and have had their work disrupted.

In the last two weeks, I spoke with nurses and nursing leaders of several organizations to learn about how the coronavirus pandemic has changed their work. In these podcasts, skills nurses have always used in their work—critical thinking, problem-solving, innovative thinking to create work-arounds, mobilizing teams—are apparent in how nurses quickly adapted to this crisis.

Visiting nurses.

From the Visiting Nurse Service of New York, I spoke with Dan Savitt, executive vice-president and chief financial officer, as well as visiting nurse Ruth Caballero. Caballero said the majority of her patient visits were currently to patients who had been hospitalized for COVID-19 and were now home recovering, though all were still testing positive. She talked about donning PPE prior to entering homes and teaching family members how to be safe while being caregivers. She also said she was “seeing a lot of fear” in clients, wondering if they’ll fully recover or if virus will come back. Here’s our conversation:

Challenges in preparing students.

Beverly Malone, CEO of the National League for Nursing, talked about how faculty has adapted teaching methods to move classes online and were relying more on simulation. She also noted that faculty are concerned about making sure students, especially those graduating, have the skills they need. She also noted that it remains to be seen whether schools will reopen in the fall.

Cancer doesn’t wait; oncology nurses are adapting.

The chief clinical officer of the Oncology Nursing Society, Lisa Kennedy Sheldon, spoke with me about special concerns for patients undergoing chemotherapy and for nurses who now may not have protective equipment necessary for handling toxic medications. Sheldon is an oncology NP at St Joseph’s Hospital in Nashua, New Hampshire. She says it’s a balancing act to weigh the risk/benefit of having patients come to facilities for treatment vs. altering their treatments

School nurses: crucial roles in their communities.

Robin Cogan, is a school nurse in the Camden, New Jersey, school system, a faculty member at Rutgers University-Camden and also active on social media as The Relentless School Nurse. We spoke about her role as a school nurse and the importance of the connection school nurses have with communities. One major issue has been ensuring messaging about prevention makes sense to different communities and figuring out what reopening schools might look like, especially if a vaccine isn’t yet available. Listen to our conversation below:

We’d love to hear how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected your work as a nurse. Email me at shawn.kennedy@wolterskluwer.com.