Sophmore Clinicals

During the spring of my sophomore year at Longwood University, I feel that I was able to grow my professional development during my nursing clinicals. Not only did we have clinicals for the very first time, but we also had disappointing news that we would not be able to complete them in person due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This was very tough because after having completed just four in person clinicals with my classmates and clinical instructor we were not allowed to return. Once I felt like I was getting the hang of how to take care of my patients we were not able to go back and work with them. I struggled wondering how we were going to be able to complete our clinical hours online and if this would prepare me sufficiently enough for the real world. Thanks to our amazing nursing faculty I feel that they were able to adjust to online clinicals in the best ways possible at this time. They allowed us to do live zoom sessions where we were to instruct a professor what to do to the patient in our simulation labs that we were originally supposed to complete in person. Luckily we were able to complete all of our clinical hours online. I think that even though my first semester of nursing clinicals did not go how I had at all expected I think I gained even more out of this experience. Being able to adapt and experience the effects of this pandemic first hand will help me with my future career as a nurse. I will never forget this experience and think I am better suited to move forward with my nursing career.