Closed Borders podcast - Voices of International Nursing Students during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Closed Borders podcast was produced in partnership with the participants from my PhD research. Each international nursing student has their own episode. Their episodes consist of excerpts from recorded conversations collected between 2020-2023. Students selected their own content, so that their episode best reflected their individual experience. The podcast comprised the artefact for my artefact-exegesis PhD.

Throughout the 8 episodes, despite their individuality, common themes were unmistakeable. Students describe the vulnerability of being temporary migrants, anti-Asian discrimination, anxiety about families back home where COVID-19 rates were extreme, and poor mental health. International nursing students also managed the same stressors faced by local peers studying in a profession working in the forefront of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This podcast is less a source of entertainment than a container for new knowledge. The intent, and the hope, is that the dissemination of new knowledge will help the nursing profession to understand the experiences of international nursing students from a wholistic perspective.

Like a group of concentric circles, student needs are intertwined. To address students’ educational needs is to address their overall life experience in ordinary and extraordinary times.

Voices of International Nursing Students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Listen via the Podbean app, or https://stimpani123.podbean.com/

Anti-asian discrimination, temporary migrant status prohibited access to financial support, anxiety for family in countries with high COVID rates, poor mental health and learning to become a Registered Nurse while coping with these factors, as well as dealing with issues as as a student in a front-line profession during the pandemic.