Barry University sent 17 senior nursing students out to the front lines to battle the novel coronavirus by letting them graduate early. 

The private Catholic university in Miami made it possible for the 17 senior nursing students have chosen to invest their time in managing heart/lung machines sooner than they planned, according to WSVN.

The students in the Cardiovascular Profusion program learned the skills necessary to shore up health providers. Given the demand on the medical workforce, these 17 students are being permitted to graduate a little early. 

“It was natural, when we began to see that this was becoming a pandemic, that we had to look for ways to expedite the graduation of our senior students and move them into the workforce more quickly,” John McFadden, the dean of Barry University’s School of Nursing, told WSVN. 

Andy Kemp, one of the senior students, looks forward to working alongside the doctors and nurses who are healing COVID-19 patients. 

“There’s critically ill people out there; they need us. We’re excited to get out and be a part of that and join our teams that are short-manned already,” Kemp told WSVN. “With coronavirus and the pandemic that’s occurring, we anticipate that the workload is going to increase.”

While Barry University students will miss out on their formal graduation ceremony, they are scheduled to graduate virtually this month. 

Steeped in Catholic tradition, the university believes that it is important to help their students find how they should serve their community. 

According to Barry University, “a Barry education and university experience foster individual and communal transformation where learning leads to knowledge and truth, reflection leads to informed action, and a commitment to social justice leads to collaborative service.”

Barry University is located just a few miles from Miami’s beaches.