Exploring the Intersection Between Academic and Professional Practice During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Undergraduate and Graduate Nursing Students’ Experiences

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has implications for students who are also nurses. PURPOSE AND METHODS: This qualitative descriptive study used a practice development approach to explore the intersection between academic and professional work experiences for undergraduate Post-Diploma Registered Practical Nurses bridging to Registered Nurse Bachelor of Science in Nursing students and Master of Nursing graduate nursing students during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study incorporated critical aesthetic reflections that focused on the personal and aesthetic ways of knowing, as a data collection approach and knowledge dissemination strategy. RESULTS: Analysis of the narrative component of participants’ reflections revealed the following themes: sensing a “call to duty,” experiencing a myriad of emotions, shifting societal and individual perceptions of nursing, and learning in an uncertain environment. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the study can inform educational strategies and academic policies to support this unique nursing population, who are frontline practitioners as well as student learners.