On September 23, 2022, in the Black Lecture Theatre, we hosted a video premier event from a digital storytelling workshop held with four nursing students in the RRC Polytech BN program. The students were invited to share the digital stories they had created, including their challenges and success with learning to be a nurse during the pandemic. The video workshops and the research were funded by the RRC Polytech STAR grant fund. Four nursing student volunteers participated in the workshops and produced the videos linked below: Brynn Clifford, Lami Omidele, Nengi Shadrack, and Donna (Wenying) Wang.

The Video creation was the final phase in a study conducted by Breanna Sawatzky, Campus Mental Health Specialist, and Kim Mitchell (formerly of RRC Polytech, now Assistant Professor, College of Nursing, University of Manitoba). The study began prior to the pandemic in fall 2019 as a way to test the impact of several mental health interventions on student wellness and resilience. After the pandemic-related shut-down, however, we pivoted the study focus to the entire student body of nurses and conducted several surveys from June 2020 to June 2021. In the fall and spring of 2021, we held several focus groups with faculty and students.

The digital storytelling workshops were held both virtually and in person during the month of July 2022. Special thanks to Deb Gural who gave her support and expertise with WeVideo during the workshops. Breanna, Kim, and Deb all participated in the StoryCenter digital storytelling workshop in preparation for this phase of the study.

The first workshop with the students included topics such as the principles of storytelling, scriptwriting, and use of the WeVideo platform for video creation. We shared the focus group findings with students as inspiration for the video creation, but invited them to tell any story they felt willing to share. The second workshop focused on perfecting their scripts in preparation for recording. We then sent them off to spend two weeks finding images, music, and video clips that would support the telling of their stories. During the third workshop, students shared their rough video edits and worked on editing their videos.

The videos produced are moving renditions of the lives of students learning to be nurses in the midst of a pandemic while navigating parenthood, marriage, jobs, supportive and unsupportive instructors, mental health issues, and English as a second language. Each story is its own unique journey and reflects common issues we heard about from students during the survey and interview phases of the research.

Post written by Kim Mitchell – Assistant Professor, College of Nursing, University of Manitoba