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For two fourth-year College of Nursing students, the Canadian Nursing Students Association (CNSA) annual conference held January 19 – 24 was a great opportunity to meet other nursing students from across Canada and learn the importance of taking care of themselves in order to care for their patients.
“Nurses are human as well, and this conference could not stress that enough,” said Oluwatosin (Tosin) Daso, the college’s official CNSA delegate. “It’s so important, because when there is accumulated stress and the nurses aren’t taking care of themselves, they can easily become frustrated and transfer that aggression to patients.”
Daso and Nursing Students Association (NSA) senate rep Jessica Ritchie were among six College of Nursing students who attended the virtual conference, hosted by MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alta.
“I did miss the part about travelling, but it was still good to gain knowledge and meet people virtually,” said Daso, who is originally from Nigeria.
The virtual format also allowed the students to attend workshops while still keeping up with their busy schedules. Ritchie had an exam in the middle of the conference, while Daso was part-way through her practicum at St. Boniface Hospital.
“We attended as many workshops as we could, and some of them were very interesting,” said Ritchie, originally from Russell, Man. “There was an ASL workshop where we learned basic medical sign language so we can communicate with the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. The topic of the conference was crisis intervention, so we got to learn about how nursing and other health-care professions are impacted in crisis situations.”
The conference encouraged students to interact online, and awarded prizes to the students who interacted most. At third place, Ritchie won an $80 gift card.
“I have quite a few takeaways from this conference, but the main one is that I learned it’s ok to ask for help. The stigma of that needs to be addressed,” she said.