Methods: The student’s unedited qualitative experiences were captured through the technique of reflective journaling and a retrospective qualitative research design ensued. The qualitative study was IRB approved by the university. Thematic analysis occurred separately by two researchers who read the transcripts multiple times to gain a sense of meaning and used the data to create themes and sub-themes. Consensus occurred and themes and subthemes were confirmed.
Results: A thematic analysis of these student’s emotional journaling responses were processed and counted. As can be imagined, emotions of courage, fear, sadness, and worry turned into concerns over their own health and questions of their own mortality. Three students were on temperature monitoring for 21 days while another had an unrelated medical concern. Themes included: Mixed emotions, Nursing as a Calling and Trust Issues.
Conclusion: Clinical nursing faculty never know when the next unknown or unexpected disease or crisis will be confronting students in large scale hospitals serving a multi-cultural population. Exploring what occurred in this situation will encourage faculty and hospital administrators to plan ways to confront unexpected crises that inevitably occur in clinical settings serving diverse populations. Having a repertoire of faculty activities immediately available, including journaling and simulation, will help reduce the stress of a crisis situation and offer immediate coping strategies for those affected. Because of the use of a variety of faculty activities that will be described during this presentation, students were able to manage their stress, examine the situation critically and learn incredibly valuable lessons, while completing their nursing program, leading toward the start of their nursing careers.