Clinical Training for Nursing Students Sidelined – Inside Higher Ed
California nursing students worry completion of their programs will be delayed as clinical rotations are suspended because of coronavirus crisis.
Health-care workers are needed now more than ever, but obstacles to completing clinical education hours risk delaying graduation for thousands of nursing students in California. Many hospitals and other health-care facilities where students complete their clinical rotations have suspended these programs for students as the facilities respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The presidents of the California Association of Colleges of Nursing and California Organization of Associate Degree Nursing wrote to Governor Gavin Newsom last week asking for relief from a state requirement that nursing students complete 75 percent of their clinical hours in a direct patient care setting. The letter asks Newsom to issue an executive order giving nursing colleges flexibility to use simulations and online education models to enable students to fulfill their clinical hour requirements.
Newsom’s office referred a request for comment to the California Department of Public Health’s public affairs office, which said via email that the department had not yet made a decision on the issue.