01484834-20210616-15

Prévia do material em texto

Addressing Potential Effects 
of COVID-Related Curricular 
Changes on New Nurse Role 
Identity
To the Editor: 
In a recent article titled “Professional 
Identity in Graduating Nursing Students” 
(Fitzgerald & Clukey, 2021), published 
in the February 2021 issue of the Journal 
of Nursing Education, the authors dis-
cussed the findings of a phenomenologi-
cal study seeking to elucidate the essence 
and meaning nursing students attributed 
to their personal nursing professional de-
velopment. 
I am a prelicensure nurse educator 
with experience in teaching both before 
and during COVID-related changes to 
our curriculum. My recent and ongoing 
experiences teaching prelicensure stu-
dents, when viewed through the lens of 
the Fitzgerald and Clukey’s (2021) study 
results, are cause for concern. The com-
munity of prelicensure nurse educators 
must take steps to mitigate the poten-
tial damage, in the areas of professional 
identity and role formation, related to 
the changes to our curricula due to the 
COVID-19 pandemic.
These often relatively unplanned and 
ongoing changes to prelicensure nurs-
ing programs throughout the United 
States have occurred in the three main 
learning environments: the classroom, 
the laboratory, and clinical learning 
environment. Moving classroom expe-
riences into a combination of synchro-
nous and asynchronous online didactic 
lessons represents one example of these 
changes. Additional changes include 
cancelling laboratory and clinical learn-
ing or changing those experiences from 
face-to-face learning to virtual synchro-
nous and asynchronous methods. The 
dynamic nature of the COVID-19 pan-
demic continues to force nurse educa-
tors to drastically alter or cancel planned 
learning activities, sometimes with only 
a 24-hour notice. 
How do these COVID-19 related cur-
ricular changes relate to the findings of 
Fitzgerald and Clukey’s (2021) study? 
The answer is found in the major con-
cepts of professional identify described 
by the participants and the factors that 
support the development of the partici-
pants’ personal nursing role develop-
ment. Several of these concepts include 
knowledge, caring, competence, con-
fidence, and critical thinking. Accord-
ing to study participants, actual patient 
care experiences in the clinical learning 
environment facilitate the development 
of these concepts. Other important con-
cepts, such as teamwork and communi-
cation, are best suited for development 
by student participation in synchronous 
group activities in the classroom, labo-
ratory, and clinical learning experiences. 
Finally, the essential nursing attributes 
of integrity and advocacy identified by 
the participants often develop best by 
observing those same attributes in oth-
er nurse role-models, such as faculty or 
staff nurses at clinical sites.
As a prelicensure nurse educator, I be-
lieve the ways in which we have taught 
our prelicensure nursing students over 
the past year due to COVID-19 related 
curricular changes threatens the known 
facilitators of the development of profes-
sional identity in our graduates. We must 
recognize this threat and implement pur-
poseful and evidence-based educational 
interventions to mitigate any actual and 
potential future harm to our students and 
their nursing role formation. We should 
also share our successes and struggles 
related to these topics with each other to 
collectively facilitate the success of our 
students.
Reference 
Fitzgerald, A., & Clukey, L. (2021). Professional 
identity in graduating nursing students. Jour-
nal of Nursing Education, 60(2), 74–80. https://
doi.org/10.3928/01484834-20210120-04 
Michelle Ann Plourde, MSN, BS, RN, CEN
michelle.plourde@sfcollege.edu
Assistant Professor, Santa Fe College
The author has disclosed no potential con-
flicts of interest, financial or otherwise. 
doi:10.3928/01484834-20210616-15
Letter to the Editor
e1Journal of Nursing Education • Vol. 60, No. 7, 2021