By Bram Sable-Smith, Wisconsin Public Radio/Wisconsin Watch
Keeley Johnson Crosby already had a bachelors degree in Spanish when she returned to school to become a nurse.
“A certain kind of person is drawn to this profession,” Johnson Crosby said, “somebody who really values self-sacrifice and working towards the greater good.”
Johnson Crosby is finishing her final semester of nursing school at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Under most circumstances she would be poised to start her final clinical rotation at University Hospital while preparing to join the workforce in May.
But the coronavirus pandemic swept into Wisconsin, making this year anything but normal.
Barred from hospital rooms
In February UW Health barred students from going into rooms at the hospital that require personal protective equipment like gloves and face masks during what was already a heavy flu season. The fast-spreading coronavirus has since forced the nursing school to move all learning online, ending students’ interactions with real patients at a time when hospitals need more help than ever.
Johnson Crosby said she feels “stuck,” unable to help out during an unprecedented public health emergency. She and her fellow nursing students want to pitch in, Johnson Crosby said.
Enter Marcela Hanson, a UW-Madison nursing senior who, along with other students, was also searching for ways to help out during the current emergency situation.
Hanson works as a University Hospital nursing assistant while taking classes. A hospital colleague told her that many health care workers were struggling to balance work and childcare after Gov. Tony Evers shuttered schools to slow the COVID-19 outbreak.
An idea was sparked
That sparked an idea: Hanson and her fellow nursing students could watch the children, since they were remaining in Madison for classes.
Hanson shared the idea on her graduating class’s Facebook page, and received a strong response. She created a spreadsheet with the names and contact information for nursing students willing to help – 15 so far – and sent it to “basically every nurse and physician I know.”
Hanson and some other students will volunteer their time. Others may get paid, depending on the needs of the students and hospital staff, Hanson said.
“In a time like this where everyone’s scared and uncertain of what’s going to happen next, I think it’s so important to build upon the community that we have, to find some light in this scary time,” she said.
Johnson Crosby is among the students who signed up to help. She said the effort reminds her of why she turned to nursing in the first place.
UW Health itself launched a survey on Thursday, seeking more people offering childcare for health care staff.
Dr. Linda Scott, dean of the UW School of Nursing, wrote that she is proud of her students for their “leadership, commitment and compassion,” adding: “It’s what Badger Nurses do!”
This story comes from a partnership between Wisconsin Watch and Wisconsin Public Radio. Bram Sable-Smith is WPR’s Mike Simonson Memorial Investigative Fellow embedded in the newsroom of Wisconsin Watch (www.WisconsinWatch.org), which collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.
Bram Sable-Smith joined the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism in 2019. Before that, he spent five years reporting on health care at KBIA in Columbia, MO and as a founding reporter of Side Effects Public Media, a public media reporting collaborative in the Midwest. He also taught radio journalism at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.