A simulation laboratory designed to enhance nursing education will be dedicated in Lander University's William Preston Turner Department of Nursing on Wednesday, March 31.
Department chair Bernice Daugherty said the laboratory will give students opportunities to experience and respond to clinical situations they may not see while caring for patients in local hospitals and other facilities. It also provides a very safe environment in which students may learn both correct and incorrect methods of dealing with health problems.
The simulation laboratory includes four so called mid-fidelity mannequins, including one child, and one high-fidelity mannequin. All are computerized and can be used to demonstrate a number of normal and abnormal features commonly found in human patients.
The high-fidelity mannequin, Sim Man, can be programmed to demonstrate specific health problems and responses to various interventions. It talks and offers other vocal responses, and students' interaction with it can be videotaped for training purposes. The laboratory includes a control room from which the instructor controls Sim Man and can view students' caregiving during each experience.
Daugherty, associate professor of nursing at Lander, said South Carolina nursing education programs are collaborating on designing faculty training related to simulated scenarios. They are also working on a list of the top ten health problems that all nursing students should experience before they graduate.
When the project is complete, it will provide consistency in training for all nursing graduates in South Carolina.