Marcia Porter

Amanda Joy, Rebecca Puddester, Erin Blackwood and Savannah Isaacs left the LRC with mannequins, IV poles, blood pressure cuffs and various other supplies, enough to create their own mini-skills labs in their home kitchens, living rooms, even in a child’s playroom.

The family cats were not amused, apparently.

Recipients of the inaugural President’s Award for Exemplary Service, Champions of Innovation, these four women, all registered nurses (RN) with backgrounds in acute medical, surgical and pediatric nursing, were determined to ensure that nursing students could continue learning the essential skills needed for clinical rotations.

Hands-on, psychomotor skills, such as washing patients, taking blood pressure, inserting catheters, performing tracheotomy and tracheostomy care, etc., are foundational, preparing students for their placements and ultimately for practice as RNs.

“The pandemic has truly been tough on everyone, and we’re so proud of these four who’ve shown such dedication to student learning,” said Dr. Alice Gaudine, dean of the FON. “Nursing education remains an essential service during the pandemic, which means we must ensure that our students have the education, skills and experience they need to graduate and take their place as RNs in health care system that really needs them.”

Necessity is the mother of invention

For the sake of student learning, there was a need to innovate.

A child’s play table became the stage for a video shoot demonstrating tracheotomy, tracheostomy care on a small mannequin. Treadmills, even a flower vases were used for securing mannequin heads, so that students could learn how to insert and care for enteral tubes. Full and empty Pepsi bottles were effective props for demonstrating the concept of percussing.

“Despite being in a pandemic, with thousands of people dying around the world, they showed up for work.” Dr. Sandra MacDonald

Wrote instructor and PhD in Nursing student Daisy Baldwin of her colleagues in a letter of support, “I would describe them as heroes to our students because without their remote home videos, and their presence in the LRC, students would not have met the clinical requirements to graduate. Students are not permitted to go into clinical areas without learning their clinical skills first.”

Taking part from home, students created veins out of straws, and covered water bottle openings with waxed paper to practice catheterization.

Instructors’ pets became online therapy animals, and at least one family member helped demonstrate care techniques.

“Taking supplies home and teaching students their lab skills via webcam and seeing them succeed when we returned to in-person lab was definitely a proud moment for me,” said Ms. Blackwood, who’s now an RN in Emergency at the Health Sciences Centre and a master of nursing (MN) student.

"It was a great day when we got everyone back on campus." -  Rebecca Puddester

In spite of their best efforts, instructors quickly realized that students needed to be present in the lab to ensure they were able to learn and develop the necessary competencies to practice nursing.

“It was a great day when we got everyone back on campus,” said Ms. Puddester, a PhD in Nursing student and instructor. “I hope that students know we saw their struggles at this time and appreciated their understanding and willingness to make the best of things.”

Instructors and students returned with new cleaning protocols, wore masks at all times, turned hallways into one-way corridors, kept student groups small and tripled the number of lab sessions, teaching approaches were modified to maintain physical distancing.

All of this before any vaccine had been rolled out.

“They were among the first, if not the first, to return to campus,” said Dr. Sandra MacDonald, associate dean (undergraduate) in her letter of support. “They carefully considered their professional role and duty to provide care (in this case to teach nursing students how to provide care) and then consider competing obligations to their own health and the health of their families.

“Despite being in a pandemic, with thousands of people dying around the world, they showed up for work.”