Every student at California State University, Bakersfield has been affected by the quarantine brought about by COVID-19. They are finishing classes online, finding creative ways to safely celebrate the end of the term and dealing with doing virtually everything from home.
One group who has especially felt the impact of the coronavirus is the students in the graduate nursing program. Not only are they finishing their coursework online to become family nurse practitioners, they are also fighting the virus on the frontline in intensive care units, emergency rooms and other healthcare facilities as working nurses.
“While they are working on the frontline as healthcare providers, they are still keeping up with all their course requirements,” said Dr. Heidi He, director of the graduate nursing program. “I am very proud of them and how they are able to meet all the requirements even with this crisis going on. They have demonstrated true commitment to their education and their profession.”
As students, they are part of a program that is following all state guidelines on distance learning to lessen the risk of the virus, even doing computer simulations and telehealth to complete clinical hours that would typically be done in person. As working nurses, however, they regularly don masks, gloves and any other required personal protective equipment to continue their mission of helping those in need.
Mariana Arambula-Damián is one of 19 students graduating from the nurse practitioner program in spring 2020. The first-generation college student currently works in Adventist Health Bakersfield’s Intensive Care Unit, where she has recently cared for COVID-19 patients.
“I have held a lot of hands (with gloves on),” Arambula-Damián, 28, said. “I have assured my patients that they are not alone and that I am with them and that we’re doing everything in our power to see them out of the ICU in better condition. I have had to deliver bad news to family members … I have seen people graduate and leave the ICU successfully, and I have sweated a lot! Patient care in full personal protective equipment (PPE) is sweaty business.”
The experience of working during a pandemic first included a lot of fear, she said – for her own life, for her family, for her colleagues and for the community. But all of what she has done at work so far, she noted, are things nurses deal with every day even in better times.
“We come in and we dedicate 12 hours on our feet to ensure that every need of our patient is met,” she said. “We help each other, we vent to each other and we cry with each other, and sometimes we go home wondering how our patients are doing and if we will see them the next morning or not. But we get up, collect ourselves and do it all over again for them – our patients.”