Post Katrina: the story of the LSUHSC School of Nursing.

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY HEALTH SCIENCES CENTER (LSUHSC) SCHOOL OF NURSING HAS A REMARKABLE STORY TO TELL. Hurricane Katrina blew through New Orleans in August zoo j, followed by a breach in the levees that effectively destroyed 80 percent of our beloved, cany city. As the world watched in horror, people abandoned their homes, their work, and all that constituted normal life. * Post Katrina, it has taken extraordinary effort by many people to regain some elements of normalcy for a city that is by no means repaired and restored. This article tells how, in those early days after the hurricane, nursing education kept on course within the LSUHSC system and how, surprisingly, the catastrophe provided a unique opportunity to plan a refashioned school of nursing. Making Do in Baton Rouge Although all LSUHSC buildings in New Orleans were forced to close for repairs, the six schools of the health sciences centers reopened on September 26, 2005, at our Baton Rouge flagship campus. Ninety-six percent of our students showed up. In efforts to educate our students in Baton Rouge and on other campuses across the state, logistics were daunting. LSU set up a telephone call-in service and established a website that had 2.5 millions hits within days. The Pete Maravich basketball stadium on the Baton Rouge campus was converted into a MASH unit. Staffed almost entirely by volunteers, it briefly became the largest acute care hospital in the country, processing 6,000 patients and triaging 15,000 others with special needs. Faculty slowly trickled into Baton Rouge, and it became possible to begin the process of organizing temporary structures for classrooms and housing. Housing was the most critical issue. Funds from FEMA allowed LSUHSC to hire a recently refurbished Finnish ferry, that normally crossed the Baltic Sea, as home for faculty, staff, and students. Buses were arranged to take students to class, and two meals each day, dinner and breakfast, were provided from the moored, stationary ship, where one could watch the Mississippi River roll inexorably downstream. Finding classroom space and clinical sites presented a major challenge. For an entire academic year, undergraduates had all their lectures before 11 am in a movie theatre where the aroma of popcorn was pervasive, the air was stuffy and stale, and the LCD player perched precariously on a seat in the back row. It was an odd experience to teach in a movie theater. We felt dwarfed by our PowerPoints, which loomed overhead on a huge screen, while with no place to put material we did an odd sort of juggling dance to follow our own notes, manage the PowerPoint, and ensure that our students remained engaged. Fortunately, Southeastern Louisiana University (SLU) lent us space for monthly Friday evening and Saturday classes for our graduate students. SLU also provided lab space, allowed us to place a librarian in their library, and made space available for a few faculty meetings. We were made to feel welcome, but it wasn't our home. Clinical sites were a different story. With scrambling, and the willingness to drive considerable distances and use both evening and night shifts, we were able to patch together sufficient sites. Nurse practitioners in various agencies helped us out, offering to become temporary part-time faculty for clinical supervision. The senior administration determined that all our health disciplines would continue to provide education to our student body. We had been undergoing undergraduate curriculum revision for some time and had just initiated a second-degree, accelerated baccalaureate program. Plus, we had begun development of a doctor of nursing practice program. The disruption provided the impetus to look at things in new ways. We had to be creative and willing to do things differently. We brought all changes to the Louisiana State Board of Nursing. The board, which also had to relocate to Baton Rouge and understood our difficulties and our needs, was willing to work with us, provided we kept them informed. …