WVU-P nursing labs offer students a healthy look at hospital experience
West Virginia University at Parkersburg second semester nursing students Joni Casto, Eric Fajardo and Tyler Ketchem work in the simulation lab at the college. The nursing labs are like a hospital floor with “patients,” high-fidelity manikins, life-size patient models, wired to present a variety of different ailments and conditions, that the students would go about and treat, learning how to care for patients. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)
West Virginia University at Parkersburg second semester nursing student Joni Casto practices checking a patient’s vitals in the school’s simulation lab where nursing students learn how to conduct themselves on a hospital floor and learn how to care for patients. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)
West Virginia University at Parkersburg second semester nursing student Tyler Ketchem practices checking a patient’s feet in the school’s simulation lab where nursing students learn how to take care of patients. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)
West Virginia University at Parkersburg second semester nursing student Tyler Ketchem practices on high-fidelity manikins, life-size patient models, in the school’s simulation lab, learning how to best care for patients in a hospital setting. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)
West Virginia University at Parkersburg second semester nursing students Joni Casto, Eric Fajardo and Tyler Ketchem work in the simulation lab at the college. The nursing labs are like a hospital floor with “patients,” high-fidelity manikins, life-size patient models, wired to present a variety of different ailments and conditions, that the students would go about and treat, learning how to care for patients. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)
West Virginia University at Parkersburg second semester nursing student Joni Casto practices checking a patient’s vitals in the school’s simulation lab where nursing students learn how to conduct themselves on a hospital floor and learn how to care for patients. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)
West Virginia University at Parkersburg second semester nursing student Tyler Ketchem practices checking a patient’s feet in the school’s simulation lab where nursing students learn how to take care of patients. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)
West Virginia University at Parkersburg second semester nursing student Tyler Ketchem practices on high-fidelity manikins, life-size patient models, in the school’s simulation lab, learning how to best care for patients in a hospital setting. (Photo by Brett Dunlap)
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PARKERSBURG -- Nursing students at West Virginia University at Parkersburg have access to a state-of-the-art training facility to gain the necessary skills for when they will be taking care of real patients.
The students under WVU-P's Nursing and Health Sciences Division obtain the needed training for an Associate of Applied Science degree in Nursing.
"We have these awesome sim(ulation) labs and no one really knows about them," said Division Chair Kathy Frum. "We want to share all the programs we have and the cool equipment we have."
The lab has been in place for four years and school representatives want the community to know what was available.
"We have one of the greatest facilities in the state, but no one around here seems to know it," Simulation Coordinator Stephanie Smith-Stout said.
WVU-P has 144 nursing students.
The nursing labs are like a hospital floor with four adult "patients," high-fidelity manikins wired to present a variety of different ailments and conditions, in rooms and in hospital beds. Various equipment, med carts and so on, are also on hand that nurses would be using in a hospital setting.
"Everything is set up like it would be in the hospital to give the students the most realistic experience as possible," Smith-Stout said.
She has every nursing student for their time at WVU-P. She regularly brings them into the sim labs for two-hour sessions where they do high acuity and lower occurrence situations that challenge their knowledge and build their skill set.
"It is a puzzle for them to figure out how to fix the patients," she said. "We run these machines and it is like a real-time reaction to what is happening."
She is able to change the vital signs for the practice patients and see how the students are able to react and deal with changing situations in caring for patients.
"It is designed to make them better so they can achieve their goals," Smith-Stout said. "Inversely, if they don't do what they should, things get worse, the patient deteriorates and sometimes we have big events and we have to practice doing code situations in here and things they may never see during clinicals."
Students have opportunities to do those things in the labs, dealing with heart attack and stroke situations, so they know what to do if it ever arises.
Students can learn from their experiences in the labs, work on how to handle what might occur and gain that experience before they get out of the program and on their own, Smith-Stout said.
"I do some of the more difficult situations that they may never get to see out in the hospital but should know how to react to it," she said. "We cover that in here."
She challenges all of the students based on where they are in the program from the first semester to the fourth semester.
"I get to watch them grow through the entire program," she said.
The lab also includes a birthing simulator, a new-born simulator and a simulator modeled on a 5-year-old child.
"We can cover the entire life span of patients in here," Smith-Stout said as this area does not always have a large number of pediatric patients.
Officials said the university supports their program by keeping the most up-to-date equipment.
Frum said the simulators can test knowledge and approaches to treating patients on a variety of subjects that may or may not come up during a clinical rotation. It also allows the instructors to talk to students about what they are doing right and wrong without an actual patient's care being impacted.
"When they are RNs at the bedside after they graduate, they will still have that nugget tucked away in their long-term memory," she said.
Smith-Stout said she spent a lot of times working on grants to help fund the lab. She estimates it took over $1 million to set up what they have.
"The cost value is tremendous," she said.
The students said the simulators help them prepare for what they could face on a hospital floor.
"I think it has helped me get more comfortable in a hospital setting which can be unnerving for people who don't have experience," said second semester nursing student Joni Casto. "Getting into this space and being able to familiarize really helped me being able to focus on my nursing techniques once I got to the hospital.
"It lets me do some practice and be able to enter a room more confidently instead of shy and unsure what to do."
Tyler Ketchem, also a second semester nursing student, said he enjoys the simulator rooms as it helps him know what to look for with a patient and how to interact with them.
"It helps you to know what to do when a situation arises," he said.
Contact Brett Dunlap at bdunlap@newsandsentinel.com