“I feel like my world has been flipped around,” says Taylor Root. Lots of people are feeling the same way right now, but Root has a different take on it: “I also wouldn’t change a thing.”
The SCTCC Practical Nursing student is set to graduate this May, and on top of figuring out online classes and her homework, Root is an essential employee in the health field. She works at St. Cloud Hospital as a Nursing Assistant on the NeuroScience and Spine Unit, and she’s also a Trained Medication Aide/Certified Nursing Assistant at Talahi Senior Campus.
At the hospital, she helps patients with their daily living activities, like bathing and dressing, and also transferring using assistive devices as well as providing accurate patient documentation.
Her main duties at Talahi Senior Campus include the medication cart under supervision of an LPN or RN and also to assist residents with daily living.
But to be an essential employee means much more than “regular duties as assigned.”
“To be an essential employee during these times means that I need to be willing to help out no matter what,” explains Root. She knows that she will need to step up to the plate when others can’t come to work because they’re sick. “Our number one goal is to ensure the safety of people coming to the hospital or nursing homes.”
Root admits that the COVID-19 pandemic has made her a better employee AND student. She goes to her jobs every day knowing that what she’s doing is helping fight off COVID-19 and flattening the curve. She is also adjusting to learning online:
“Since I’m not in class every day, I need to be more responsible about logging into D2L and checking my emails so I don’t forget to do a homework assignment or a test and lose points.”
Being a nurse means being flexible, and that’s what Root is doing right now: taking things day by day with work, school, and her everyday life. It’s not just nurses, either. Flexibility to make changes to help flatten the curve and beat COVID-19 is part of everyone’s life right now, worldwide.
“We need to come together and fight this pandemic as one,” Root says, “and that’s exactly what is being done.”