Health care, you would think, would be the place where the old adage about never letting a serious crisis go to waste would never apply. It’s an appalling thought on its face. But here we are, six months into the worst public health crisis of our generation, and we are seizing opportunities wherever we can in nursing education. We must.

Today, more than 200 students, across multiple majors and the three state universities, volunteer with SHOW each semester.

We’ve got a pandemic on our hands and we need to collectively wage the fight against it! I’m not talking about COVID-19. I’m talking about the pandemic of inequality.

Our role as health educators, researchers and practitioners is to teach, investigate and care for people. It is also our role to call out injustices and disparities and actively work on solutions that benefit the overall health of all communities.

We’re still unraveling the mysteries of COVID-19, but there’s no doubt about the impact of nurses in the global fight against the pandemic. Health care workers are on the front lines and nurses are the far-forward troops. Although masked and, hopefully, covered in essential PPE, nurses are the human faces of health care for COVID-19 patients and their families. As premier patient educators, nurses also are helping to counter rampant misinformation about an unprecedented public health threat.

In my over 40 years of nursing education, this spring’s graduation and convocation are going to be, by far, the most unusual I’ve ever been a part of. When the semester started and we were all just coming back from the holidays, none of us could have imagined that in just a couple of months our world would be completely turned upside down.

Edson College faculty, staff and students are volunteering their time, skills and health expertise to help in the fight against COVID-19.

For a few mind-blowing, adrenaline-pumping days in mid-March, Margaret Calacci, our director of the Grace Center for Innovation in Nursing Education, felt like she was back in the Army. That turned out to be a very good thing for the 345 nursing students whose education and future careers in the time of COVID-19 physical distancing depended on the building of a robust, remote simulation learning program on the fly.

3 questions about the International Year of the Nurse and Midwife. This is a rare opportunity for a sustained conversation about the invaluable role our professions play in health and health care. Let’s give them something to talk about.

Policy is to government as nursing is to health care. Local government and nursing impact people at human levels; just imagine the impact if they linked arms for a greater good. It’s actually happening here in Arizona.