Bachelor of Science in Nursing

[Chanda] I’m Chanda Moellenberg, I’m an assistant professor at Northwest University in the College of Nursing. And today, I’m also acting as Program Manager for Medical Teams International’s Mobile COVID-19 Testing Program. So we’re out here today at the Ethiopian Community Center in South Rainier testing members in the community for COVID-19.

[Chanda] So, we’ve kind of built a mobile COVID testing program this summer, and it’s all volunteer staffed, and we go around to homeless shelters and service provider sites in congregate settings like shelters, and then reach out to underserved populations. Since we’re all volunteer based, I’ve actually been recruiting a lot of our nursing students, alums, and faculty to be the clinical staff, so it’s been a really great partnership.

[Adele] My name is Adele Gordon, and I am a senior at Northwest University in the College of Nursing, and I’m helping professor Moellenberg help with COVID testing at the Ethiopian Community Center today. So actually, she reached out at the end of the semester and she emailed all of the students talking about how this is a great opportunity to get involved in the pandemic today. And I knew that I wanted make a difference, I didn’t want to just sit at home during quarantine, so I decided to go out and see what it was like. And after my first event, I knew I wanted to keep doing it and I’m doing it all the way until I start working, but it’s definitely been very rewarding.

[Natalie] I really like the team that we are working together with and I feel like I’m acquiring so many new skills, and just being out here and serving the community just feels great so I think my experience out here has been really great and I’m enjoying it so far. I will say, because of the role that I play, I think it’s more of a management position if I can say that. Because like the people who are volunteering, we have to make schedules for them and make sure that everything is working. So I think that’s a skill that I’m acquiring here, just being able to work with a team and having good communication skills, making sure that everything is sorted. So when you come here today, we have to make sure that everybody knows what they are doing and where they are going. So I think for me, just personally, it’s been that team work and having good communication skills with everybody.

[Chanda] As many universities had to across the country this spring, we cancelled clinical experiences for students and took them out of hospital settings, and moved to online. A lot of our students missed really important opportunities to be out in the field practicing healthcare. So it’s been a really wonderful thing to see this program develop, and use volunteers, and see such a high intake of volunteers from the College of Nursing at Northwest, and from our alumni and even faculty coming out and testing. And it’s a great resume experience for nursing students to have real clinical experience in disaster relief. So I think it’s not only a wonderful working experience for our students, but it’s enabled us to actually do the work that we’re doing, because I would say they are the majority of our workforce these past few weeks. So we certainly wouldn’t be able to help the community in this way without our students and alums stepping up so much, and I think it’s given them—hopefully in a mutually beneficial way—interesting life experience and good clinical experience, and something that will help them in the future as they seek jobs. So it’s been really nice to see this emerge as kind of a helpful partnership for both of us.

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