Student nurses, pharmacists assist with covid efforts

Cars lined up bumper to bumper at Dana J. Dykhouse Stadium in November, but the occupants weren’t arriving to watch football. Rather, it was students taking advantage of free on-campus COVID-19 testing.

“It was kind of stressful at times,” said senior nursing student Cortney Becker, who helped with the testing. “There would be a line of 20 cars. We were constantly running out to the cars, explaining the procedure, how to be safe until the results came back, and then swabbing them.” 

Becker, of Yankton, was one of 84 students and four faculty members in the College of Nursing who worked with COVID-19 testing in Brookings and Aberdeen. Also, 100 students participated in flu vaccinations in the Brookings, Aberdeen and Milbank areas.

In addition, 40 students in the College of Pharmacy and Allied Health Professions worked with health system partners such as Brookings Health System, Sanford Health and Avera to deliver vaccinations to frontline workers. Students also are working with community pharmacies and those same health systems to administer vaccinations to those living in nursing homes.

Also, 12 of the 16 students in the respiratory care program gained temporary respiratory care therapist licenses so they could work at hospitals in Sioux Falls and Rapid City.

Students in the two-year associate program take classes and clinicals at the hospitals and were encouraged to apply for student intern status to gain valuable experience before entering the workforce and relieve overburdened registered respiratory therapists. The request came not long before semester break, so they were able to work full time until classes resumed Jan. 11.

“While sometimes it was hard to work with COVID patients, other times it was rewarding because the patient improved and was moved to another floor; they had a lower oxygenation need and could be transferred to another floor. I felt good that I did something and the patient got better,” said Carolina Diaz, a student in the Sioux Falls program.

Busy November days at testing site

Initially, the on-campus COVID-19 testing site was in the parking lot east of Frost Arena, but as fall grew colder, the testing center was moved to the stadium, where there was more protection from the elements. 

People would drive onto the ground floor concourse under the west stands, where nursing students—fitted with an N95 mask and with a face shield, disposable gowns and gloves—waited in ticket booths with paperwork and also would come out to give the COVID-19 nasal swab test.

“I was surprised how many students didn’t know we were using nasal swabs, rather than collecting a sample from the back of the nasal cavity,” Becker said.

When she began working in COVID-19 testing in early October, an average of 40 students were tested daily. When on-campus classes were about to end in mid- November, up to 150 students were coming daily for tests. However, 50 to 75 of them were student-athletes, who were required to be tested twice a week at scheduled times, she said. 

On most days, there was a group of eight clinical students plus an overseer from SDSU Student Health Clinic and Counseling Services. When fewer student nurses were available, there was more help from the SHCSS.

On the quiet days, the entire procedure might be completed in 10 minutes. On the busy days, students might have waited an hour, Becker said.

Becker victim of COVID-19 herself

It was by no means panic testing. “The majority weren’t too worried about the process or had done it before. Around one-fourth of the students either had visible symptoms or were anxious,” Becker said. 

She experienced testing for the patient’s perspective in mid-October and received a positive result. “It wasn’t too bad in my case. I had flu-like symptoms, fever, fatigue, body aches and a loss of taste and smell for a while. The hardest part was having to isolate for 10 days.” Becker isolated in her room in the Brookings house she shares with three others.

That meant she missed hospital clinical hours that her classmates had. To make up those clinical hours, she worked eight days of COVID-19 testing. The norm was four days.

Becker was participating as a fourth-semester student nurse for community clinicals. Typically, students would get involved in a community outreach project in Brookings or Sioux Falls. 

Reflecting on her time spent with COVID-19 testing, Becker said, “Overall, it was a great experience. The pandemic has shown the world how to take precautions and prevent the spread of COVID-19. Working at the campus testing center was beneficial to get hands-on experience before starting work as a nurse. It allowed me to gain an experience that is new to many while helping other students.”

Silver linings in COVID clouds

Nursing and pharmacy administrators also saw wins from dealing with COVID-19.

“The utilization of our students will only grow as the vaccine is released more broadly,” said Dan Hansen ’03/’05 Pharm.D., interim pharmacy dean.

“One of our biggest wins recently was having the ability to offer an immunization training course for pharmacists in the state. Our Pharm.D. students have been trained to give immunizations as part of the curriculum for close to 20 years now, but there are several practicing pharmacists who have not participated in that training. 

“Knowing that community pharmacists are going to play a big role in the delivery of immunizations, we decided to offer a training directed specifically at them, and we had close to 30 people take part. I think activities like this are a great example of the work we do as part of the land-grant mission of this university,” Hansen said.

Academic benefits seen as well

As far as the academics in those two colleges, there have been challenges, but also bonuses.

Mary Anne Krogh, ’85/Ph.D.’11, nursing dean, said, “Because of external grant funding, we were able to purchase 10 robots to be spread out across all of our sites. These robots helped faculty and students to stay connected when COVID-19 made in-class participation impossible.”

Hansen said, “I have no doubt that there are a number of things that have come about throughout the last year that will stick long after the pandemic has passed.

“One example is that telemedicine is here to stay. It has been growing over the years and the pandemic only sped that implementation process up. A piece of feedback we have received from those who hire our graduates is that they need to be trained to practice in this type of environment.

“Now that we use tools like Zoom in the educational setting, our students are going out into the practice area feeling much more comfortable interacting with patients and practitioners in a remote environment.”

In both programs, clinical experiences that were shut down in the final weeks of spring semester were resumed for fall classes, only with more personal protective equipment.

“Students showed their resilience but are looking forward to resumption of a more normal routine,” Krogh said, echoing a thought in all of our heads.

– Dave Graves