Perioperative Nurse Educators: Rapid Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic.

During the initial response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, hospital leaders limited or halted the scheduling of elective surgical procedures. Perioperative nurse educators participated in a rapid response to develop innovative strategies and use a variety of modalities to provide information and education activities for staff members who were reassigned to different hospital areas. Residency program educators used alternative teaching methods to accommodate the lack of clinical rotations and allow orienting nurses to progress in an OR nurse residency program. Limited access to ORs and social distancing rules prevented nursing students from completing clinical rotations in health care settings, and academic educators developed flexible solutions to meet the students' needs. Perioperative educators can use guidance from national and international organizations to assist leaders and staff members with managing patient care during the pandemic. This article presents specific information on perioperative nurse educator roles and responses during the pandemic.

Collaborative student-faculty research to support PhD research education.

This paper describes a three-semester hour applied research course taught over three semesters in a revamped PhD research curriculum at a Midwestern high research activity (R2) university-based nursing program. Faculty developed this strategy to help students become adequately prepared nurse scientists. Students and faculty engaged in a collaborative research project to provide students with opportunities to develop, integrate, and apply research knowledge, skills, and attitudes while concurrently advancing through the related research courses. A summary of these experiences and what was learned is organized within a knowledge, skills, and attitudes (KSA) framework. The collaboration between faculty and student peers was essential to students' success in the course. Student and faculty perspectives were used to describe what was learned during the first year this course was taught, together with future recommendations.