Nursing Lab

The nursing lab is equipped with three high fidelity simulators, adult, obstetrical, and pediatric. The use of the simulators promotes skills acquisition, aids development of clinical judgment, and teaches students about complex clinical situations with lifelike examples. The use of the simulators allows students to develop critical-thinking and decision making skills without exposing patients to unnecessary risk. The simulation lab is set up to resemble a hospital room.  Instructors develop patient scenarios and use software to assist with the simulation. Actual heart rhythms are displayed on the monitor. The ob simulator provides the student with actual birthing experiences, including normal and complicated deliveries. The instructor can set up various delivery scenarios by using the software that goes with the simulator. There are also post-partum scenarios that can be designed to enhance student learning. This allows instructors to plan and implement clinical experiences prior to attendance in the actual clinical environment.

An additional lab with 10 beds and 8 standard manikins allows first-year nursing students to practice fundamental nursing and pharmacology skills. The lab is equipped with basic hospital beds, tables, and various other types of hospital equipment. There are also laptops in the lab to allow students to practice electronic charting. Demonstration and return demonstrations are performed in this lab. Students are then required to complete an electronic charting assignment to document the skills. This lab is adjacent to a large classroom that contains a smart board. The nursing area also has distance learning equipment that is portable and can be transported to either the simulation lab or the standard lab. This allows instructors to be able to connect with hospitals that have DL equipment.