Thank You to Our Heroes!
Andrea Abrams, RN
Riverside Community Hospital
Today we want to honor Andrea Abrams, RN, Riverside Community Hospital, Riverside, California. Here is her story as reported by California Baptist University.
Andrea Abrams, a nurse at Riverside Community Hospital, has been on the front line assisting COVID-19 patients in the intensive care unit. Abrams is also an adjunct professor of nursing at California Baptist University and during the past spring semester, she remotely shared the lessons she learned while working in these unprecedented times.
“I am able to really help students understand the importance of hand hygiene, PPE [personal protective equipment] use and infection control,” Abrams said. “It’s the donning and doffing of PPE that has become a very important skill.”
Abrams (’13, ’17) is one of several CBU College of Nursing faculty who are on the front line of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“There is so much to learn right now, for both the novice and experienced nurse,” Abrams said. “I can say that I will do my best to ensure that students look at the patient as a whole person, not just their diagnosis or disease.”
Abrams has family members on the front line, too. Her husband is a respiratory therapist and her oldest son is an emergency medical technician.
To prepare for work, Abrams prays and mediates. Her unit has initiated a time of prayer 10 minutes prior to the start of a shift.
“Initially treating COVID-19 patients was scary, more so because of the unknown,” Abrams said. “As nurse I try to remember that it is not a virus I am fighting, it is a patient I am treating.”
Thank you to Andrea for your commitment, dedication, and compassion for your patients and communities.
If you have a story and pictures of a front line nurse you would like us to highlight on our website and social media, please email them to us at info@helphopehonor.org.
