The sounds of the alarm blaring at 5 a.m. as she gets out of bed and gets dressed. Chloe Haskin brushes her hair and pulls it into a bun. She makes her coffee and feeds her cats before taking the drive down Arrow Highway to Foothill Presbyterian Hospital.
Waits until she sees her classmates arrive one by one and meets with her professor, until their N95 masks, face shields, and gloves are handed to them.
Associate degree nursing student Haskin is one of the students who have returned to campus and is now starting training at a hospital.
Haskin then puts on her royal blue scrubs, her white lab coat, her name tag and her stethoscope. After walking down to the basement of the hospital to have a pre-conference before going on the hospital floor.
Haskin looks at her watch and sees it is 7 a.m. now, she meets with a nurse and receives her patient reports she then checks up on her patients every hour and does her paperwork. At 1 p.m., it’s time for Haskin to report to her professor and give her patient report and leave for the day.
Martha Delgadillo, Noemi Barajas and Sonia Kibbe will be some of the instructors on campus and hospitals overseeing the student’s skills labs and training.
Students will also have their temperature taken on arrival and fill out a questionnaire to ensure they have not contracted COVID-19.
“I work better hands-on and with others than in virtual labs, I don’t know that I would do as well if labs weren’t in person,” first-year ADN student Tricia Kyle said.
Although instructors have done their best to engage and teach remotely, they are glad to be back on campus and in hospitals.
“I am very excited we were given the opportunity to go back into the skills labs so students could practice with their hands. It is just not the same online,” Delgadillo said.
ADN students will alternate between the hospitals and campus every four weeks until the end of the semester. They will either be on campus or in hospitals every Monday and Tuesday.
Director of health sciences Salima Allahbachayo will be managing the student’s training hours, ensuring students follow safety measures.
“We want to make sure the program abides by the government guidelines, so we set up several safety protocols to make sure we met the requirements to go back on campus,” Allahbachayo said.
ADN Students will attend one of the hospitals partnered with Citrus College, either Intercommunity Hospital, Foothill Presbyterian Hospital, Pomona Valley Hospital or Corona Regional Medical Center.
The ADN students led by Barajas will go to Intercommunity Hospital in Covina and Delgadillo’s students will go to Foothill Presbyterian Hospital in Glendora.
“This experience was a little shocking for some of our first-year students since it was the first time some of them set foot in a hospital,” Barajas said.
Barajas said the experience served “as a reality check” for some of her students and made them feel more at ease by pairing up inexperienced with experienced students to work as a unit.
Third and fourth-year ADN students will attend Pomona Valley Hospital and the Corona Regional Medical Center and taught by Kibbe.
“My students are alternating between virtual clinical labs and seven to eight weeks at the hospitals,” Kibbe said.
First-year students focus on primary patient care and head-to-toe assessments, while senior students are responsible for medication, injections and IVs in addition to basic patient care.
“We don’t get assigned COVID-19 patients, but we always run the risk of contracting it since we are at a hospital,” Delgadillo’s student Gloria Sayegh said.
Delgadillo said that the training will prepare students for their profession because they will interact with infected patients in a real-life setting and run the risk of becoming infected as nurses.
“I have first-hand experience with having COVID and taking care of patients with COVID, I can get COVID again according to the research, but I am not afraid,” Delgadillo said.
Nurses during the pandemic have an increased risk of contracting COVID-19, but following the proper safety protocols will reduce that risk.
“I feel like it’s here and we have to attend to it and that’s what nurses and healthcare workers are trained to do, so long as we practice proper hygiene and take this serious to its fullest extent, we reduce the risk of contracting COVID-19,” she said.
While there are risks in returning to hospital training, many students like Haskin are excited to be around their peers and help people.
“It’s really great being able to help the people who need it and being around like-minded people and even making friends,” Haskin said.
