COURTESY OF ANN LAWANI ’18 (MSN)
[buoyancy]
ON THE FRONT LINE COVID nurse Ann Lawani fights for her patients
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by Carol Scimone nn Lawani ‘18 (MSN) is the kind of nurse you want caring for you when you’re sick. She’s compassionate, she’s knowledgeable and she understands the pain of personal loss. “My undergrad was in healthcare administration,” Lawani says. “Right after graduation, my brother passed away. And in
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U S D M A GA ZI N E
my mother’s grief, she remembered the nurses who took care of him. I wanted to be that person for others. That’s what motivated me to go into nursing.” Lawani graduated from USD’s Master’s Entry Program in Nursing (MEPN) and worked for Sharp Memorial Hospital in cardio-pulmonary nursing until the pandemic hit. Then she piv-
oted to become a COVID nurse. Because of her skills and compassion, she was recently promoted to lead clinical nurse on the COVID unit at Sharp Coronado. She’s also currently working toward her PhD. Her doctoral research focuses on palliative care and helping patients plan for a dignified end-of-life.
Of course, Lawani never expected to face a global pandemic so early in her nursing career. In doing so, she has learned there are only so many hours in a day. “My professors have been really supportive and encouraging, because they know the situation I’m in now.” She also finds it helpful to meditate, journal and pray. “Sometimes it’s about coming home and just crying in the shower, and that’s what I need that day,” she says. Unfortunately, for Lawani and her healthcare colleagues, those days have become more frequent. “I think the energy we had as nurses when the pandemic started, we don’t have quite as much of that energy anymore. It’s been rough. We’re emotionally exhausted.” And like all hospitals, those in the Sharp HealthCare system face a serious shortage, and not just of dwindling ICU beds. “It’s one thing not to have ICU beds,” she points out. “It’s another not to have enough staff. We’re severely shortstaffed now because we can’t get travel nurses. They go to hotspots, but now, the hotspot is everywhere, so there is a shortage of nurses.” Unfortunately, Lawani does not see an end to that problem in the near future. “I foresee that a lot of nurses are going to change professions. We’re already exhausted, we’re burned out and we’re starting to take it personally when we’re trying to put a patient on BIPAP (Bilevel Positive Airway Pressure) and they die — even on BIPAP, even on that much oxygen, the patient passes away.” Lawani knows that patient death is a part of being a nurse, but not at the levels she’s seen since March 2020. She recently had a patient who was near death and wanted to speak to
