Updated December 11, 2020 7:44 p.m. EST
By Leslie Moreno, WRAL multimedia journalist
Raleigh, N.C. Seventy-two nurses received their pins in a drive-thru ceremony Friday upon graduating from Wake Technical Community College, becoming the newest faces on the front line of the coronavirus battle.
Recognizing that licensure exams will take longer to administer during the pandemic because fewer testing sites are open and students will have to take it individually in order to maintain physical distancing, the North Carolina Board of Nursing instituted “graduate registered nurse” status, allowing nursing graduates to go straight to work while waiting to take the exam.