Simulator manikins help student nurses learn their craft

Jack McDuffie

A student in Bladen Community College’s practical nursing program was busy working with a mannequin during a training session, when suddenly the “patient” talked to her.  The look on the startled student’s face was described by BCC Allied Health Director Erin Hinson as “priceless.”

The “patient” the student was working with was one of several new high-tech manikins designed to give student healthcare providers at BCC more lifelike training in a simulated situation.

Several practical nursing students at Bladen Community College work with lifelike manikin during a training session.  The remainder of the class observes and critiques the students on the team.

Called Laerdal VitalSim Patient Simulator manikins, the models enable nursing instructors to provide essential patient care training scenarios to their students well before the students are prepared to perform these functions in clinical situations.

Hinson says the new manikins are excellent tools for instructors because they provide scenario-based training for the care and management of a wide variety of patients.

“Students are able to listen to heart and lung sounds as well as bowel sounds and take blood pressure measurements,” said Hinson.  “A variety of skills including tube placement, catheter placement, IV starts and medication administration can be initiated on these manikins, as if they were a real-live patients.

“Our instructors can run pre-programmed scenarios or write their own custom scenarios to meet specific learning objectives.  After the scenarios are complete, the instructors conduct a debriefing session to ‘grade’ the performance of the student during the scenario,” she added.

Hinson, who provided the voice of the manikin in the above training situation, said that having the manikin talk to the student nurse as he or she is working simulates the type of situation a nurse will work with on a daily basis.

“Dialogue with the patient is an important part of health care and students must be able to converse with their patients as they care for them,” she said. 

Following a three-year study of the use of this type of manikin, the National League of Nursing published a guide on their use in nurse education.  The guide states that this type of training provides nurses practice that can be invaluable in emergency situations.

“High-tech simulators are remarkable for their ability to mimic reality through verbalization of medical complaints and display of vital signs,” the report states.

A grant from the North Carolina Community College System specifically for health care programs provided the funds to purchase the manikins.

For information on BCC’s associate degree nursing or practical nursing programs, call Hinson at 910.879.5632.