I do not want to suggest that we should make lemonade from the COVID-19 lemon, but let us be honest, we have learned a lot in the last two years. In this issue of Nursing Research, we are pleased to provide a collection of papers detailing a few lessons related to the conduct of research that may transfer to postpandemic work and to our understanding of the health effects of COVID-19 on a variety of populations. We received these papers, and many more, in response to a special call. We could not accept all the submitted papers, but the volume of papers received suggests there is more to learn from the terrible times we have experienced.

Reviewers for this issue were looking for potential advancements in nursing science. These advancements are particularly apparent in the methods papers, which offer good ideas that will be useful to science even when the pandemic is over. If nothing else, the pandemic taught us to think differently about how we can do science in ways that do not require "in-person" approaches. Of course, not all scientific work can be done remotely, but a surprisingly significant amount of important work can be accomplished without the expense and time of home visits by researchers or clinic visits by research participants. As we are all likely aware, the world, including our scientific one, will never be what is was prepandemic, so these methodological strategies, and their nuanced strengths and limitations, are helpful.

Importantly, we learned how COVID-19 and pandemic-related restrictions affected those with chronic health conditions or limited resources for managing health and illness. Much more "self-management" occurred during the worst of the pandemic when the attention of many health care providers was on those seriously ill with COVID-19. Thus, a theme among these papers is that quality of life was affected, whether the sample involved young adult cancer survivors, middle-aged adults with multiple sclerosis, or breastfeeding mothers and their infants. At the same time, there is evidence in much of the research that people are indeed resilient; many were able to get the needed information or resources to manage their needs. However, the research also highlights the gaps and inequities in resource and knowledge availability. Efforts to strengthen self-management capabilities and reduce inequitable resource distribution are needed.

Of note, we also received many papers describing the stress of the pandemic on nurses and other professional health care providers. We accepted only a few of these papers for publication; the overwhelmingly adverse effects on care providers during the pandemic are well documented. We think the included papers offer insight into more hidden sectors of health care providers and workers.

We did not receive papers about institutional interventions about how health care institutions used what they learned during the COVID-19 pandemic to change their systems, including their "disaster" preparations. Unfortunately, there will likely be more "COVID-19 moments" in the future. I hope someone is doing research so that, in these crises, health care institutions and government agencies are better prepared than they were in 2020. An added benefit to research about institutional preparation is that health care systems can implement needed changes now, to the benefit of all caregiving staff and to patients needing and receiving care. The need for institutional intervention work to increase crisis preparation and support health care staff predates the pandemic, and it is long overdue.

No one hopes for another pandemic. However, as humans, we seek to find meaning and make sense of our experiences, especially when life is uncertain (Christianson & Barton, 2021). Although the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted our usual ways of being, thinking, and doing, the events of the last two years have given us unique opportunities to examine who we are, what we understand about ourselves and each other, and how we can improve what we do for the benefit of those who are the recipients of our scientific efforts. I hope you find meaning in the papers published here and that you are able to incorporate these lessons into your own scientific work.

ORCID iD

Rita H. Pickler https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9299-5583

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