Nursing lab upgrades give students better feedback
There are some things you don't want to learn the hard way. Say, for instance, you're a nursing student treating a cardiac patient whose condition deteriorates rapidly.
There are some things you don't want to learn the hard way. Say, for instance, you're a nursing student treating a cardiac patient whose condition deteriorates rapidly.
Scary, right? But if that patient is SimMan, your professor can hit “reset” to cure the patient.
Pitt-Bradford has been using simulated patient mannequins - SimMan and SimBaby -- for several years to put students through their paces in a variety of life-or-death situations.
A renovation this year now allows faculty to use the mannequins more effectively by speaking through them and observing student reactions through one-way glass. Students can be left alone to handle the simulation on their own while the professor watching and controlling the simulation can push students' ability to handle the situation or make an encouraging or guiding comment.
During class, Mary Boser, assistant professor of nursing, sat in the tiny control room, where she could be the voice of the patient and control SimMan's biological responses.
Through the one-way glass in front of her, she could see the students working in a mock patient room. Two sets of monitors - one for her in the control room and one for the students in the patient's room - show various measures of SimMan's condition. Pulse and breathing rate and oxygen level were displayed on a monitor, along with blood pressure and IV drip rate.
Students received a short briefing about the condition of their patient before entering the room.
They asked the patient a few questions and checked vital signs. “My chest hurts,” Boser said through the mannequin as the students continued through their checklist of procedures. “I'm trying to get them to look at me,” she said to an observer in the control room, but the students were preoccupied, concentrating on what they thought they needed to be doing.
Another faculty member, Dr. Jean Truman, associate professor of nursing, stepped into the patient room and stopped the simulation to explain that even though there are tasks the students needed to perform, they first needed to pay attention to the patient.
It's just the kind of teachable moment she likes about using simulations. Truman does not like to let students - especially first-year students like these - go too far afield before she steps in. More advanced students, however, will advance further into a scenario, where things go well if they are doing the right thing, but can turn tragic if they don't.
A second group tried the scenario with the cardiac patient and got further, turning their attention to the patient sooner, choosing to call the doctor (again Boser in the control room) to ask for more medication and starting an intravenous line.
One of the advantages of recording such simulations is that all students in the class can learn from each group's response to a situation by either watching on closed-circuit television in a classroom or by watching the recording together later during a group debriefing.
“Debriefing should be safe,” Truman said. “It's not about 'What did I do wrong?' but rather 'What can I do better next time?'”