EAU CLAIRE (WQOW) – The UW-Eau Claire 2022 nursing class is preparing to get pinned, graduate and head out into the workforce, but the medical profession isn’t the same one they originally signed up for.
“We do a lot of supporting and training for the clinical setting, which has changed,” Dr. Meg Lagunas, director of the program’s Critical Learning Center, said. “So, thinking about how we can increase the amount of students who are using the lab, but doing so in a safe way has been a fun challenge.”
“It has been a little bit stressful at times, because those are your real world situations, where you walk in, you have to assess your patients, which our patients are mannequins in here,” Ellie Decker, a member of the class of 2022, said of the importance of the simulation lab.
In the lab, students can simulate a broad spectrum of wound-treatment and other procedures they will regularly be asked to do in their careers as nurses. To meet the challenges of the pandemic. students were able to rotate into the lab in small groups and stream their work to their classmates, which makes this group trailblazers in nursing education.
“It will probably be a lifelong change to nursing education, is that value of simulation and how we can use simulation to prepare our students for wherever they end up,” Lagunas said.
Over the last several years, many of the 69 new nurses being trained between the UWEC campus and their Marshfield extension have already been working as CNAs or in other frontline healthcare roles. Despite the loss of significant hands-on time in the academic setting, they have real-world experience.
“People can have confidence knowing, yes we did do [some of] our schooling online, but we were also there when the pandemic was at its worst,” Zach Scharenbrock, another member of the graduating class, said.
The nurses pinning ceremony will take place on Saturday, May 21, at 11:15 a.m. in Schofield Hall, and their commencement will take place at 5:30 p.m. in Zorn Arena.
The foundation for the nursing students’ hands-on skills is formed in their simulation lab, where the learning from lectures and textbooks is put to the test. Students have had to rely on virtual learning a lot more during the course of these studies, and the time in the lab was restricted as well.