brandon johnson
Brandon Johnson, APRN, FNP-C, a lead nurse practitioner for Baylor College of Medicine who works at CHI Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center, and an adjunct faculty member at the Prairie View A&M University College of Nursing.
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“There is some really nice simulation software that allows me to watch a student take care of a virtual patient.”

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: Voice of the COVID-19 crisis

“There is some really nice simulation software that allows me to watch a student take care of a virtual patient.”

3 Minute Read

Brandon Johnson, APRN, FNP-C, is a lead nurse practitioner for the Baylor College of Medicine general surgery thoracic team who works at CHI Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center. He’s also an adjunct faculty member at the Prairie View A&M University College of Nursing. Johnson spoke to TMC News on July 8, 2020.

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I am a nurse practitioner on the thoracic surgery team. We take care of patients with esophageal cancer, swallowing disorders, lung cancers. We provide reflux surgery. We have one of the best mesothelioma programs in the country. I support four phenomenal physicians who provide surgical interventions for those disorders.

When COVID came, we all had to be more aware to make sure our patients were safe and our staff was safe. One thing that we do for patients now that we didn’t do before is have multiple layers of screening in place. So, 24 hours before any patient comes to our clinic, we call them and we do a screening to see if they have any COVID-related symptoms. We ask a number of questions. We have a second layer of screening at the very beginning when they enter the hospital. Their temperature is checked. Then, there is a third layer of screening in the clinic.

When patients come in, we make sure they have a mask and that they are wearing it appropriately. Every staff member in the hospital wears a mask for the entire duration of their shift and we also wear face shields for further protection.

We are a clinic where patients come for their visit or we conduct their visit via telemedicine via Zoom or via telephone just to mitigate the risk of transmission.

Brandon Johnson, APRN, FNP-C, a lead nurse practitioner for Baylor College of Medicine, works at CHI Baylor St. Luke’s Medical Center and is an adjunct faculty member at the Prairie View A&M University College of Nursing.

We are also a surgery center, so an added step now is that we do a COVID-19 test on our patients five days before any surgical intervention to make sure that they do not have a positive COVID-19 test and that we do not increase the risk of transmission. If they are asymptomatic and have a positive COVID-19 test, they need to quarantine. If they are symptomatic, we encourage them to seek medical care.

About 75 percent of my day is seeing patients for clinic visits. The other part of that time, I am preparing for other patients coming to the clinic to be seen for thoracic disorders. I am improving clinic processes to make sure that we have a high level of staff morale, to make sure we mitigate the risk of transmission and that we are scheduling follow-ups for patients.

At Prairie View, I teach the basics of the clinical experience. I show them, from the very beginning, the basics of nursing. Before the pandemic, I would take them to the hospitals so that they could put those basic concepts into play. While delivering education during this pandemic, we had to be innovative. We started doing more online education for the students. We added simulations online just to make sure they got the tools they needed to meet objectives. It’s fun, but it requires a little more effort and for you to be more creative. I still see the students. I can have the lectures. There is some really nice simulation software that allows me to watch a student take care of a virtual patient. I can see their decision-making clinically online. Even if I’m not physically there with a student, I am still there helping them meet objectives and helping them learn the concepts of nursing.

We are committed to quality online instruction so that we have more Prairie View nurses on the front lines in the future.

— Brandon Johnson, APRN, FNP-C, as told to TMC Pulse Assistant Editor Cindy George

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