Metro State University of Denver Nursing Students Attend Class In Person For Critical Pandemic Lessons

DENVER (CBS4) - Since the middle of March, there have been very few students on the Auraria Campus. But one very important class is still being taught in-person so nursing students at Metro State University of Denver can continue some of their most important education.

"We're doing a skills lab for our foundations class," said Vanessa Roach, a first semester nursing student. "It's where we're learning to administer medications so they arranged for us to come in in small groups and be able to learn how to do that."

Many of the classes have gone online, but the hands-on experience from the lab classes were condensed down and a semester of learning was crammed into eight hours.

"We're not usually doing a lab that long. But because we had to wait and put it off, they're teaching us a lot of stuff in one day," Roach said.

"There's a lot of things you need the hands on touch with and this is one of those hands on times that is really important for them," said Dr. Terry Buxton, the Chair of the Nursing Department at MSU Denver.

"We need to make sure they can do them safely so that when they do have a clinical rotation they will be able to do these with assurance of patient safety and the utmost care."

Dr. Buxton says it took weeks of conversations with officials from all over the three-school campus so the lab class could be conducted safely for nursing students. The lab work is critical for students to continue their education. About 50 students are on an accelerated 17-month path to graduate.

"It's definitely important to know how to do the medications and how to do them properly, so it's good to get the hands on portion so you can get a little experience and not feel too overwhelmed when you actually do it with a patient," said Roach.