PA College Magazine - 10

PA COLLEGE / FEATURE

J

effrey Kauffman, ASN '20, a nursing
assistant in the intensive care unit
at WellSpan York Hospital, has
stories from the front lines of the
COVID-19 pandemic. Just not that many with
happy endings.
"Our patients are extremely ill,"
Kauffman explains. "When people
are at their absolute worst, that's
when they need the most help." It's
what inspired him five years ago to
leave his real estate career and join
WellSpan's ICU staff, exactly where
he plans to stay upon graduating
with an ASN degree this December
from Pennsylvania College of
Health Sciences.
By far the most emotionally trying
aspect of his experience, Kauffman
says, has been having patients die
without family members present.
At WellSpan and in virtually every
hospital across the country, the
pandemic curtailed visitors. An
increased workload and protocol
meant that Kauffman and his
colleagues have had to limit patient/
family Zoom calls and updates to
once a day.

Since October 2019, Ally Ahner,
ASN '21, has worked with mostly
independent living residents at
Lancaster's Brethren Village Retirement
Community. For a month this past
spring, she volunteered to work with
COVID-positive residents in Brethren
Village's Courtyards nursing home
facility.  

"

		

- Kristyn Schnur, ASN '21

Since June, WellSpan allows one visitor per day, including in
the ICU. "I miss the families," Kauffman says. "There are so many
lessons learned, but the big one is that patients need family
support."
Kristyn Schnur, ASN '21, who has been a cardiovascular technologist
at WellSpan for five years, agrees: "The pandemic has changed
how we care for our patients. Since they don't have family
support now, you really have to be there for them."

PACOLLEGE.EDU

"We've had patients who had cardiac symptoms [left untreated]
for days and weeks because they
were scared to come to the hospital,"
she says. "When they get to us, they
are in really bad shape. Health care
in a pandemic has been trying and
scary, but it hasn't deterred me. There
are so many unanswered questions
about this virus, but we know how
to take care of patients."

The pandemic has changed how we care
for our patients. Since they don't have family
support now, you really have to be there
for them.

"Patients were passing away without
family members there," he recalls, his voice growing quiet.
"Sometimes they were alert and knew that their family couldn't
be there." When they weren't, Kauffman said the goodbyes for
the patient, holding the patient's hand and the tablet or phone
so the family could see their loved one. "This, by far, has been
the hardest part," he says.

10

With family members no longer available for pre- and post-cardiac
testing, Schnur is there to answer questions, hold a hand, and
comfort in ways like never before. Unfortunately, the pandemic
has increased the number of critically ill heart patients, she says.

"A lot of the residents in the
Courtyards are unable to communicate
their needs or wants," she explains.
"We were short-staffed and trying to
keep most residents in their room,"
she says.

Getting patients up, washed,
dressed, fed and changed - and
doing it on a constant repeat cycle - was second nature, thanks
to the skills she learned during her first semester in the nursing
program at PA College. Doing it while suited up in gowns, three
masks, gloves, goggles and a face shield was a challenge.
"You could see [the residents] becoming depressed, eating less,
helping with their own care less and getting less communicative,"
Ahner says. "Communicating something as simple as asking
them to open their mouth and demonstrating it was completely
out of the question."
When the pandemic hit and Ahner was working with independent
living residents, she was terrified that if she got the virus, she
could pass it on unknowingly. "When I went to the Courtyards,
I felt relief," she admits. "They already had the virus, and the
worst that could happen is I would get sick. I was only going
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