Development of a qualitative respirator fit testing program for BSN students.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the nursing student clinical experience. At the time of this project, hospitals hosting students for clinical experiences had a high population of COVID-19 positive patients. University and hospital policies at the time prohibited students from caring for COVID-19 patients due to the inability to safely ensure that students could access the proper protective equipment (PPE) necessary when caring for patients in airborne precautions. Infection control guidelines for patients in airborne precautions require a N95 respirator to be always worn by healthcare providers. These respirators require yearly fit test following OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) standards. Hospitals do have the resources to complete N95 fit tests for nursing students. The solution was to provide qualitative N95 mask fit testing, performed by university faculty, staff, and students using OSHA guidelines and standards. Within 3 months, over 50% of the student population had been fit tested, which increased the clinical opportunities for the students.

Team Teaching in Nursing Education: Lessons Learned During COVID-19.

BACKGROUND: Team teaching involves multiple faculty teaching a single course and can follow different formats that can result in an enhanced experience for students and faculty. METHOD: Team teaching was adopted for prelicensure students during the COVID-19 pandemic to maximize faculty time and expertise, eliminate duplicate work, and build in redundancy should faculty become ill. Using a tag-rotation model design, faculty were assigned content and activities, as well as assessments for the content. All work was housed on the learning university's platform. RESULTS: Novice faculty were mentored, duplication was eliminated, and efficiency was actualized through team teaching. Most faculty found the benefits to be advantageous and continued to use the model by choice. CONCLUSION: Team teaching promotes a culture of debate and critical thinking as well as interprofessional learning. Faculty relationships and planning for both students and faculty are essential elements for team teaching success. [J Nurs Educ. 2023;62(4):249-252.].

The leap to faculty in the time of COVID19.

Nurses are essential workers, particularly in a pandemic. Increasingly complex patients and an ever-changing health care environment are a few of the challenges that nursing faculty have to prepare novice nurses for, now more than ever, but it is proving difficult due to the limited number of nursing faculty. In order to continue to prepare nurses for practice, schools of nursing are looking for ways to recruit and retain new faculty. The transition from clinician to academia is challenging due to anxiety related to new expectations, adjusting socially into a new environment, and loss of a previous identity as a clinician; however, for faculty hired during the COVID19 pandemic, these challenges have been amplified due to the loss of learning through observation and social interactions. The idea that learning is a cognitive process that takes place in a social context is rooted in Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory. This paper gives voice to two novice faculty who undertook the challenge of starting a ranked faculty role while working remotely during the COVID19 pandemic. Due to the increased likelihood of another pandemic occurring in the relative near future due to globalization; the second role of this paper is to propose measures for faculty enculturation, based on the Social Learning Theory, which can be implemented safely from home. Improved nursing recruitment into academia, and retainment, will improve the education of future nurses facing the challenges of modern healthcare.