We lost a lot in the pandemic. There have been more than one million lives lost in the United States to date, and over six million deaths worldwide. We lost time with family. For months, we lost the ability to travel or even to move about freely. We also experienced the disruption of even the simplest routines, such as running errands or purchasing food for our families. Our children and our students lost important life milestones and rites of passage such as participation in sports, musical and artistic performances, and high school or college graduation ceremonies. There are so many things that cannot be reclaimed, and do-overs are not the same, try as we might to make them meaningful. Along with this is an economic impact, the scope of which we have not yet fully felt.

In addition to health, livelihood, and lifestyle impacts, the pandemic has had dramatic and unprecedented effects on scientific writing and publishing. Naturally, there was an immediate and enormous push for research. Publication of manuscripts about COVID topics have, in some cases, greatly increased the impact factors of journals that published large number of papers based on the emerging science of COVID diagnosis and treatment. Unfortunately, serious problems were later identified with some of the results published, to the extent that journals were forced to retract over 240 articles about aspects of COVID that were found to be based on incomplete or incorrect evidence (Retraction Watch, 2022). Researchers and clinicians learned hard lessons about how to handle a rapidly evolving disease phenomenon and the care and caution needed to evaluate the state of the science before disseminating findings.

In the midst of the 'whitewater rapids' conditions that have characterized our lived experiences of the pandemic, have we learned any navigational skills? Can a silver lining be found, even though we have not yet emerged from the COVID cloud? Perhaps some of us have begun to notice areas of knowledge and aptitude emerging that we will be able to apply long after this pandemic has passed. In the spirit of getting as much lemonade as we can from the COVID lemons, here are a few to consider.

Rethinking nursing education

It is not possible to overstate the impact of COVID on instructional methods. The pandemic forced faculty to pivot immediately to a fully online learning environment. This change was extremely stressful for both faculty and students. There were lost opportunities and understandable grieving. Despite this, it was an experience that brought new ways of teaching and learning. It also brought up basic questions that had been put off or overlooked at many of our universities about how best to teach certain topical areas. It has truly been a paradigm shift, and it should be acknowledged that components of the shift involved changes to methods that already needed changing (Weberg et al., 2021). Related to this are the students and graduates who now have a lifelong understanding of the educational, clinical, and political ramifications of being a nurse during a pandemic.

A new era in working from home

Never have so many home offices been built, redesigned, and redecorated. Never have so many people commuted 50 ft or less for months on end. Gym closures and the proximity of the refrigerator led some of us to gain the "COVID-19" (pounds), but we also had our eyes as well as those of corporate leaders in every field opened to the possibilities of handling many types of work remotely, even work heretofore assumed to be only manageable in an office environment. Yes, there are downsides as well to a remote working environment, but we should give serious consideration to the upsides. In environmental impact alone, less fuel is being purchased and consumed, thousands on thousands of hours are saved by not commuting, and there are noticeable environmental benefits of fewer cars on the road (Badia et al., 2021).

People had time to write

Editors remarked on the pandemic "surge" of manuscripts submitted for publication. Although COVID topics accounted for a piece of the surge, virtually all journals experienced a high volume of newly received manuscripts on a variety of topics (Brainard, 2021). The wave began in late 2020, after faculty and researchers had adapted to COVID quarantine measures and found themselves with time on their hands. Papers that had been on the back burner for months or years, many completely unrelated to the pandemic, finally got finished. The cause? Authors were trapped at home and found the time to think and to put pen to paper.

Embracing the technology of meetings

With attendance at face-to-face meetings impossible during COVID lockdowns, the ability to attend technology-hosted meetings was no longer an optional skill set. Something called Zoom exploded like a supernova and we soon spent many of our waking hours there. It is now unlikely that we will ever revert to 100% in-person meeting attendance. This has created a new field of research into such things as eye contact while videoconferencing (where is the camera?), the etiquette or lack thereof of eating during such meetings, technological disruptions such as lost connections and the need to pause repeatedly to let latecomers in from the "waiting room", multitasking during online meetings (we have all done it), and much more (Karl et al., 2022). However, there have been clear benefits in convenience to each of the attendees, ability to meet on short notice, overall time saved by meeting remotely, and options for attire from the waist down, among others.

These are but a few of the disruptions that are having, or will have, some potentially positive impact on our work lives as we move forward into the next phases of this ever-evolving world event. There are many others to consider, such as awakening to our global interdependence and how that impacts our access to goods and supplies, ways in which we have added to our vocabulary, whether we should have ever traveled by air or other public transportation without a facemask, and many others. Last but not least, a clearer appreciation for the essential, lifesaving work of nurses understandably took a leap forward. This is an opportunity to use our knowledge and our voices to build on our reputation and our skills as leaders and managers of the health of our citizens.

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