A5
THE ASTORIAN • THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 2020
Hailey Hoff man/The Astorian
Nursing student Joey Kelly signs in to a computer to take an exam Tuesday morning during his
fi nal quarter at Clatsop Community College.
Students: There’s an enduring
need for nurses in the region
Continued from Page A1
Clatsop County’s nurs-
ing students are not being
thrown into the fray quite
yet. Elsewhere, some states
have relaxed student nursing
rules so they can help deal
with the coronavirus . But
the pandemic still infl uences
nearly everything local stu-
dents do now.
When they are in clin-
ics and hospitals working
with mentor nurses, they
wear gear they wouldn’t
normally wear. They wear a
mask at all times. They are
responding to hospital and
clinic policies that are only
a few weeks old. They mon-
itor their patients for signs of
early symptoms of the virus.
Before they leave a facility,
their temperature is taken.
Not theoretical
Though students practice
how to respond to events
such as a pandemic through
case studies and simulations,
it was all theoretical until
this year. Nursing students
‘IN OUR COMMUNITY,
WE HAVE A LOT OF SICK
PEOPLE AND IT HAS NOTHING
TO DO WITH COVID-19.’
Tina Kotson | nursing instructor
in years prior never actually
had to face anything like the
coronavirus, said Tina Kot-
son, a nursing instructor at
the c ollege.
Hygiene and safety mea-
sures — the donning and
doffi ng, the putting on and
taking off of isolation equip-
ment that protects nurses
and patients — are among
the fi rst lessons new nursing
students learn. But the virus
has brought home other real-
ities of a job in health care.
“It’s a lot of unknown
things all the time,” Kot-
son said. “I would like to tell
budding nurses they’ll be
guaranteed safety, but that
would be like telling a sol-
dier, ‘You’ll never have to
go to war.’ Or a fi refi ghter,
‘You’ll never have to run
into a burning building.’”
The coronavirus crisis “is
like a living, breathing labo-
ratory,” she added. “Despite
this being a hard, negative
time, potentially they’re
growing from it, they’re
learning from it.”
Coronavirus aside, there
remains an enduring need
for nurses in the region .
“In our community, we
have a lot of sick people
and it has nothing to do with
COVID-19, ” Kotson said.
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