by Mireya Hernandez

Students in UNM’s College of Nursing now benefit from a realistic simulation lab implemented last fall with help from the Nursing Legacy Fund.

Thanks to donations from alumni and friends, undergraduate students get high-tech training on computer-controlled mannequins complete with vital signs, including a heart beat, blood pressure and respiration. The College acquired “Sim-Man” about two years ago but needed the funds to place him in a dedicated lab. Today, he has his own hospital bed and a room where students practice real life scenarios. The microphone attached to Sim-Man allows the instructor to give him specific symptoms and sync his responses with students’ care.

“This gives students some pretty real life experience in a safe environment and allows them to experience a variety of clinical situations that they may not have an opportunity to in a hospital,” says Joan Kuemper, supervisor of the College’s Medical Care Skills Lab.

One major benefit of the lab is the ability to replicate a variety of clinical scenarios and expose all students to them equally. Though students still practice on regular mannequins, this supplementary technology allows for more realistic and tailored treatment.

“All the students get to practice the things they’ve been learning in a safe environment,” says Debby Smith, an instructor at the College. “Rather than practicing on a real patient, we can practice things on the mannequin and it’s okay to make a mistake and we can learn from it.”
Smith says one of the most important learning tools of the simulation lab is the debriefing that follows each recorded session. After treating the patient in the lab, the class reviews the scenario to discuss what went well and what could have been done differently.

Students and instructors alike say that when put into practice, Sim-Man feels like a real patient.

“After my experience with the simulator, I felt like I had gained an actual real world experience although I was just a student,” says Julie Kuiper, a junior in the nursing program. “It seems like it’s widely believed that experience is acquired only through employment, but I got that experience without having employment.”

Although the implementation of simulation technology is still in the stages of infancy, Smith is excited to have a new tool in the College’s curriculum.
“I think the more teaching strategies you have, the more students you’re going to reach because students learn differently,” Smith says.

Eventually, Smith hopes to build a network of satellite schools throughout the state to share the latest technological resources.