3 minute read
TEACHING ON THE FRONT LINES
GUIDING STUDENTS IN CLINICAL SETTINGS MEANS WORRIES FOR INSTRUCTORS, TOO
BY CHUCK WASSERSTROM
As an assistant professor in the School of Nursing, Brooke Epperson is dedicated to keeping her students out of dangerous situations during their clinicals.
As a registered nurse in her own clinical practice—primarily in the emergency room—she often finds herself tending to infected patients. Toeing both sides of the line during COVID-19 gives her a unique perspective of life as a nurse.
“My view of the situation and the pandemic is different than some others from the anxiety level because I’ve seen it in life, in person, at the bedside for the last few months,” Epperson says. “Not that it’s not scary, because it is—and I don’t want to sound I’m like I’m desensitized to it to any degree—but it’s more manageable to me because I’ve dealt with it.
“I’m not worried about catching it because I’ve been around it so much. I’m more protective of my students than I am of myself because I’ve come into interaction with it so much now.”
At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Epperson teaches level-four undergraduate research along with taking level-one students on twice-weekly clinicals to CHI Memorial Hospital Hixson. At least once each week, she can be found at Tennova Healthcare Cleveland in neighboring Bradley County as a bedside staff nurse.
In her dual roles, Epperson has witnessed and participated in what nurses have been going through since mid-March.
“I think what I have been seeing the most over the last few months has been staff exhaustion. The staff, they’re tired. It’s been nonstop since March, and now that we’re going into what we call respiratory season—the flu, pneumonia, changes in season—it’s going to get worse,” she says. “But as far as camaraderie and working together, that has always been there. You see your coworkers’ struggles and you can’t help but want to pick up the slack. Every time I’m there, I feel like I need to do a little bit more.
“The biggest positive coming out of this—and I’m seeing this both as a faculty member taking students and in my own practice—is nurses taking care of each other.”
Her School of Nursing colleague, UTC lecturer Connie Uffalussy, also shares the distinction of being a faculty member who continues to do clinical practices.
Uffalussy has spent nearly 40 years in the field, including experience as a nursing director supervising two medical/surgical floors at Erlanger Hospital. She has literally been in the trenches, serving in the Army Nurse Corps from 2007-2017 as a member of the U.S. Army Reserves, rising to the rank of captain.
With everything Uffalussy has seen, she considers working in a COVID-19 world as being just part of the job.
“If you’re a nurse, you are exposed to potentially all kinds of organisms out there,” she says. “When people come into the hospital with the flu, we still have to treat them with personal protective equipment and droplet precautions. As long as you follow protocols, you should be OK.”
Uffalussy is an instructor in medical/surgical clinical rotations at UTC as well as a level-four leadership class. She also works as nurse in the intensive care unit at CHI Memorial Hospital Hixson, saying she finds it vital to continue doing clinical work.
Connie Uffalussy
“In the medical field, things change all the time, whether it’s equipment, policies, procedures,” Uffalussy says. “I feel like I have a firsthand understanding of what nurses in the hospital think because when I’m working at Memorial, I’m just a regular old staff nurse.” +
