The face of beleaguered health care workers and nurses in crowded hospital wards decked in protective clothing has become a stock image from the frontlines of the pandemic—an image that can evoke discomforting emotions for nursing instructors, a feeling of not being where they should be.
“If I did nothing it would feel weird,” said George Washington University School of Nursing clinical instructor Amanda Nicklas, a graduate assistant in the Pathways Project.
“I don’t work in a hospital, so I don’t have a direct connection to health care in that way,” she said. “But being trained as a nurse you want to help.”
Last fall, Ms. Nicklas, a registered nurse since 2005, offered her services to the Loudon County Health Department in Northern Virginia. She cleaned voting booths to make it safer for people to exercise their civic duty during the November elections as a volunteer with the Medical Reserve Corps (MRC).