As APRN students that continue to care for patients while in this program, we are requesting to continue remote learning as COVID-19 numbers continue to grow.

Below is a list of our concerns: 

• As nurses, we are taught and expected to advocate for our patients, thus, we are advocating for the safety of our patients, as well as for the safety of our classmates, faculty, our family members, and ourselves during this surge.
  • Many students are currently working on COVID units and are at high risk of exposing their classmates and faculty by serving on the front lines.
  • Some students work with immunocompromised patients, and we could kill them if we spread COVID to them. 
  • We have two different clinical sites that increase risk of exposure for us, our patients, our classmates and faculty.
• Our main faculty member will be continuing remote learning, and when this was done last quarter with the students in-person, there were several technical difficulties that occurred. This can be avoided if students were allowed to continue remote learning as well as the faculty. Additionally, our courses do not include any “hands-on” components that would require in-person learning.
  • One of our courses has 84 students, which is concerning as COVID-19 is easily spread in large indoor gatherings.
• Clinical sites can be jeopardized  
  •  If one student is positive and exposes the rest of the class, all of us will have to miss clinical hours, along with other things such as work, and may result in not meeting our clinical hours on time.
  • Cancelled sites can make it so some students may not be able to graduate on time 
  • Appointments for testing are difficult to find with open appointments. Providing negative tests could be difficult for students and costly. 
• As nurses, we have a lot of anxiety in relation to COVID-19 and in-person learning is an exacerbation of that anxiety, which only adds to the already existing stress and burnout that nurses have been dealing with throughout the pandemic. 
  • We are burnt out as nurses. The nursing shortage has spread us thin. We have stepped up to the plate repeatedly in this pandemic. It feels like no one is looking out for us in our hospital. We now feel like UCLA School of nursing is not looking out for our safety and the safety of our loved ones. 
  • Some students have family members who are unable to get vaccinated or are immunocompromised and may put those family members at risk with the increased exposure of in-person learning.

We hope that our concerns are heard and considered when deciding on the course of this program, with our safety in mind. We thank our faculty and our clinical sites for their support throughout this program, and do not want to place either at risk with the possibility of increased exposure. We wish to be able to continue and complete this program successfully in the safest manners possible with the support of UCLA School of Nursing. Ultimately, we want our school to look out for us and our safety.