The horrors that nurses experienced during the COVID pandemic left many of them fatigued and depleted. But recent graduates are on their way to help fill the ranks…crossing university stages on Long Island this month to be pinned with the badge that signifies their official initiation into the profession.
What these graduates share in common with others drawn to the field is a desire to care for people; a motivation that was intensified by the struggles unfolding on hospital COVID wards.
“The COVID-19 pandemic dominated our education here … both in the classroom and the clinical setting. Yet, here we are, ready to graduate and begin our careers as nurses,” said Julianna Asaro, 21, of Wading River, addressing fellow nursing graduates at Molloy University Wednesday as a president of its Nursing Student Association.
The new nurses are entering a field that is under stress, with workforce shortages — more retirements are anticipated — and heavy workloads.
An April 2022 study published in the journal Health Affairs, based on census data, found that between 2020, the first year of the pandemic, and 2021, the number of nurses fell by more than 100,000 in the United States after four decades of growth.
That same month, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing published a survey that showed the first decline in four decades in nursing school applications and enrollment nationally, after an initial rise in the early stages of the pandemic.
So it seems like the very thing that made people leave is what has inspired others to join the ranks.
“It’s sort of an interesting dichotomy right now,” said Lindsay Naple, 34, of Sound Beach, who is graduating from Stony Brook’s accelerated nursing degree program and preparing to take her licensing exam. “You hear about the mass exodus of nurses due to the pandemic, but you also hear about the rise in nursing school applications. So it seems like the very thing that made people leave is what has inspired others to join the ranks.”
Julianna Asaro Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin
At the bedsides of very sick people, amid flashing monitors and beeping alarms, is where Julianna Asaro wants to be. She discovered it while working as a hospital nursing assistant in critical care during her studies. She wants to continue in intensive care after passing her licensing exam.
“I feel every day when I come here it reinforces why I want to be a nurse,” she said about her work in the hospital. “Just being a person [there] if they want to talk, getting them cleaned up so they can feel like a person again, and providing what they need. My daily tasks and interactions are what is satisfying.”
Studying under pandemic conditions was challenging, she said. “It was stressful, but nursing is a stressful career at times, and it really helped us adapt to that, I feel.
“It was just traumatizing for nurses and even doctors who worked at that time,” she said. “I think now things are better, we have more answers, just knowing what is going on. We are in a much different place now than before.”