Mark Harper @MarkHarper36 Apr 13, 2020 at 2:13 PM Medical and nursing students in Florida are unable to complete work in clinical settings due to the coronavirus pandemic. The critical role nurses and doctors are playing during the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the need for the next generation to get good collegiate training. But a cruel ripple effect of coronavirus has current nursing and medical school students sidelined, pulled out of clinical rotations, leaving them to finish semesters using simulations and video. Students are not in the line of coronavirus fire — as schools have opted to remove them from clinical settings for safety reasons and in order to preserve personal protective equipment for the nurses and doctors who are directly caring for patients with the virus. Coronavirus: Florida’s safer-at-home order does not prevent snowbirds from leaving, but can they get home? Many faculty members already make use of technology in lieu of clinical training, but they know it’s no substitute for the real thing. “There really is nothing that can replace the real contact with a real patient,” said Dr. John Fogarty, dean of the Florida State University College of Medicine. “Quite frankly, reading a book and going through a case just doesn’t have the imprint on your psyche.” Doctors in training need access to real patients to gain the ability to recognize patterns and ask the right questions to determine a patient’s history and order the proper lab work that can confirm a diagnosis. Andrea Fischer, who’s in the last semester before obtaining an associate’s of science degree in nursing at Eastern Florida State College in Melbourne, said she’s losing out on an “invaluable experience” by missing more than one-third of the 196 clinical hours she was supposed to have completed this spring. “Everything is hands-on in the […]
