5 minute read
Pandemic Ponderings
Krista (Moore) Borrego, BSN ’12, was designated along with the nurses on her floor COVID-19 nurses at Denver Health Medical Center.
“Though frightened, we all had a sense of duty: this is what we signed up for, to help others and to save lives. “The ‘healthcare hero,’ a mural by Austin Zucchini-Fowler in Denver, has shown us the silver lining and has become a symbol of hope in a desperate time for healthcare workers around the world. Here, I proudly stand with the hero and one of the many heroes of the next generation of nursing: my cousin, Cassidy Moore. [Cassidy is a junior nursing major at UWYO this year.] She is standing up headstrong, and brave. I could not be more proud of her and the fellow healthcare/nursing students who are watching this pandemic unfold — and yet, their minds are made up. Like so many of us, they were born to help. “Thank you to the Fay W, Whitney School of Nursing for teaching me my life’s passion and for providing education to the future of healthcare.”
“Something I learned the other day,” says alumna Dani Johnson (BSN ’13; MS ’19), “was to always be ready for anything, even amidst a pandemic. We are always on the lookout for the typical COVID symptoms, and I had a patient come in that had shortness of breath and a couple other things. I ended up doing an EKG on this patient and realized this person was having an active heart attack! Not what I was expecting!”
Pictured is Dr. Amy Hills (left), a provider working with Johnson (right) at a clinic in Central Colorado earlier in 2020.
Anne Peick, 2020 BRAND graduate, experienced her Capstone for BRAND this past summer. “Capstone has traditionally consisted of 12-weeks of experience with a nurse preceptor at a Wyoming hospital,” begins Anne Peick, “and students often are able to complete the Capstone in their home communities. But because of COVID, our class’ Capstone was shortened to 6-weeks, and some of our class had to travel beyond our home communities. The travel/relocation meant additional financial and logistical details to manage, in what was already a busy summer semester complicated by the pandemic. We were very grateful to a generous donor who offered a small grant to BRAND students to offset the increased costs of completing the Capstone in another community.” Nicole Sandal, Basic BSN senior student fall 2020 “I’m still not really sure what to think about COVID,” says Nicole Sandal, Basic BSN senior. “If I’ve learned anything during this pandemic, it is that healthcare never stops. Throughout all of these changes, nurses have continued to work day in and day out to keep our communities healthy and safe. I feel honored to be entering a profession that has earned so much respect and trust. It is increasingly apparent that nurses must be ready and willing to adapt to any situation.”
Amelia Woodside, BRAND program graduate August 2020, sent this picture during her Capstone clinical component. She was exhausted, just coming off a late night clinical assignment. “Working in the ER in one of our capstone clinicals across Wyoming was particularly interesting,” wrote Woodside, “because we now know that signs/symptoms of COVID-19 manifest in nefarious ways, i.e., generalized malaise, GI distress, etc. Taking extra precautions in an ER setting is of paramount importance, and I couldn’t be more grateful to participate in this once-in-a-life-time training opportunity. “Triaging for COVID-19 has turned traditional principles
of triage sideways.”
Cristina Gonzalez, online BSN Completion Program student, shares... “When I began the journey of BSN Completion online through UWYO, it was challenging enough to balance home, school, and work. In March, when the paradigm shifted, I was then balancing the home-school-work roles while riding the grand wave of anxiety with every person in the world (or so it felt). Fifteen weeks later I had personally performed over 4,000 nasopharyngeal swabs, Fremont County had had three spikes of COVID-19, our transient community from the Wind River Reservation had been set up on Powwow grounds in makeshift emergency housing, and a revolution in understanding that systemic racism is alive in the fabric of American culture with the many vigils and protests following the murder of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery. It feels like a lifetime of practicing compassion, selflessness, and patience has been jam packed in to 15 weeks like edematous legs in a pair of TED hose. “At the beginning of summer semester I realized I had one too many classes on my plate. I stayed enrolled in Health Disparities, as it felt like the prompts throughout this important and emotionally invigorating period in my life would serve as a scholarly diary of the reality I face on the day to day: the love for my children and family sharpened by the blessings we have and the challenge to articulate my fears and anger about a pandemic compounded with racial disparity and visa versa. I am oddly grateful for this period in my life as a Wyoming nurse.”
Jayson Simpson, Basic BSN Program Graduate May 2020
“It has been a particularly interesting time because of the pandemic situation with the COVID-19,” says Simpson. “A lot of patients [in his capstone experience in an Emergency Department setting in Wyoming] were coming in with concern about this virus. As a nurse, being at the ‘front hands’ of this pandemic was special, because these patients potentially needed the treatment in order to progress towards their norm, and you were there to help. At times it was frightening, but at the end of the day, I knew that this job requires risk in order to help the patient at hand.” “Overall, this experience was amazing and something that I will never forget going forward with my career.”
Picture: Simpson works with a simulator manikin in the Clinical Simulation Center within the Fay W. Whitney School of Nursing facilities.
Giavanna Marchetti, UW BSN Completion 2020 August graduate, stepped up to be counted among the heroic folks of our age, a “soldier” going into the heat of a new kind of battle. Marchetti volunteered as a nurse to go and assist New York City’s medical profession in the overwhelming flood of COVID-19 cases that have ravaged the population there, and also put her name in to go internationally to “hot spots”. Marchetti says her courage comes “from my faith, to put it simply. I got my nursing license so as to serve others.”
