Jasmin Lara does not consider herself a hero. She is a mom, doing something extraordinary to protect what is most precious in the world.
“My oldest, Alexander, he’s 7 now,” Lara said. “When he was a toddler, he had a lot of respiratory infections. I was constantly in the emergency room with him. Turns out he had enlarged tonsils.”
This moment motivated her to do something she had never thought of accomplishing: she enrolled in college to become a nurse and help her child.
Lara is one of the hundreds of new health care students across the country to answer the call in the battle against COVID-19. Their training is not the same as it was a year ago, when hour-long, in-person lectures prepared students.
Currently, future nurses can watch 10-minute YouTube video lectures from home, develop critical thinking skills via online virtual simulation clinics and interactive digital case studies.
Fortunately for these students, the school finalized construction of their new state of the art labs in the summer amid the pandemic.
