key: cord-349865-c7tu6g9o
authors: Klar, Robin Toft
title: Nurse Educators as Agents of Change in the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic
date: 2020-05-30
journal: Nurs Womens Health
DOI: 10.1016/j.nwh.2020.05.010
sha: 
doc_id: 349865
cord_uid: c7tu6g9o

Abstract The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic caused a rapid and seismic shift in the provision of nursing education. In this commentary I provide examples of how faculty and students at my university made the shift and what we have learned from the experience thus far.

Precis Nursing education during a global pandemic has provided another opportunity for nurses to demonstrate our agility.

Notes to production:

Possible artwork ideas: themes of agility, collaboration, quiet space for learning

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic caused a rapid and seismic shift in the provision of nursing education. In this commentary I provide examples of how faculty and students at my university made the shift and what we have learned from the experience thus far.

Keywords: COVID-19, nursing education, online learning, pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, teaching

We have been working overtime to bring our high-quality teaching to a new or renewed pedagogy of remote learning

Teaching during a global pandemic has elevated our understanding and appreciation of necessary quiet space to learn and reflect

Nurses have been identified as the profession most often cited as frontline heroes in the novel coronavirus pandemic. Women represent a high of 86% of nurses in the Americas and a low of 65% of nurses in the African Region (Boniol et al., 2019) . Nurse educators, who are critical to expanding the nursing workforce, are 93% more likely to be women (National League for Nursing, 2017).

Like our nursing colleagues on the frontlines, nurse educators have had to make extreme adaptations in our practice of educating the next generation of nurses. Many of us teaching at the graduate level are bringing advanced nursing education to our students who are now working on the pandemic frontlines. Additionally, many nurse educators are also active clinicians and working on the frontlines themselves. I wonder: What does this mean for nursing education in the United States and beyond? I bring in the beyond because my nursing education work also involves nursing workforce capacity building in sub-Saharan Africa. There, too, our colleagues are managing the impact of COVID-19 on educating the next generation.

The greatest adaptation to nursing education felt at the university where I teach was the transition to remote learning, as has been the case around the globe. As educators, we were not as acutely aware of the disparities our students were experiencing in relationship to their access to the necessary learning environment tools of high-speed Internet access and a quiet space in which to learn. Many more students than we appreciated accessed these tools primarily at the university. Once those doors were locked, access was greatly decreased. Faculty Affairs, who leads the conversations, and I discussed the need for an informal room of our own for faculty to care for one another through listening. We have entitled this weekly session the "Water Cooler Station", symbolizing the informal conversations we have around the water cooler when we are on campus. Our first session was attended by approximately 10 fulltime faculty. We are fortunate that one of our faculty members also teaches Pilates and conducted a restorative, sitting stretching meditation session at the end of this Friday event.

Nursing education during this pandemic has provided another opportunity for nurses to demonstrate our agility. There has been a plethora of webinars presented on this pandemic to and for a multitude of audiences. During a webinar about COVID-19 in Africa sponsored by the

International Council of Nurses and Jhpiego (2020), many attendees lamented that 2020 is the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife and that we will not celebrate together. For me, the most inspiring response to this lament came from midwife Peter Johnson

This is still our year. Let's use it to show the world why

Gender equity in the health workforce: Analysis of 104 countries. Working Paper 1. Geneva: World Health Organization