A Way Out of No Way: Racial and Ethnic Minority Nursing Students' COVID-19 Experiences

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic presented undergraduate racial and ethnic minority nursing students with unprecedented educational restrictions as their communities were also affected disproportionately by COVID-19. This study explored the lived experiences of racial and ethnic minority nursing students in the southeastern United States during the pandemic.

Semistructured interviews using a qualitative framework and methodology of post-intentional phenomenology were conducted with one Muslim, one multiracial, and three Black nursing student participants. Data were analyzed in an iterative process using poststructural concepts of lines, rhizomes, and space.

Students experienced abrupt challenging changes and isolation with the onset of pandemic restrictions. Barriers created by the pandemic and by routine educational experiences were met by creating alternate pathways to maintain forward progress.

Undergraduate racial and ethnic minority nursing students experienced pandemic restrictions within a larger context of their lived experiences. Nurse educators can use these experiences to create better relationships between these students and nursing education. [.