Nursing Students practice on robots that resemble real people, have a pulse, give birth and have heart attacks in the San Jose State Simulation Center. The center is a technologically advanced place where the nursing students learn important skills before working on real people.
Since 2004, the Valley Foundation School of Nursing at SJSU has transformed classrooms into full-on simulation labs. After receiving money from the California State University system and a donation from the Valley Foundation.
Before simulation took off in nursing, students only used static labs. Static labs are different because instead of practicing on robots, students used training manikins.
“They learn something in the classroom, either a skill or some sort of nursing theory related to a condition a patient might have,” said Colleen O’Leary-Kelley, director and professor of the Valley Foundation School of Nursing. “Then they get a chance to come in and apply that knowledge that they learned in a safe situation.”
The labs are located on the third floor of the Health Building. The program is a six-semester cohort program. At the beginning of each cohort, practicing in the Simulation Center is part of their study.
“It’s important for us to practice these skills and for us to have the confidence to know what we’re doing, because once we’re out there if we make a mistake it is pretty vital to the person’s life,” said nursing junior Lilian Anh.
Simulation labs consist of a three-part schedule, including a pre-briefing, simulation practice and a debriefing.
“They’re in there for maybe 15 minutes and it’s a written scenario with learning objectives and it is like a storyboard,” said O’Leary-Kelley. “We may or may not get to the end that we want but the participation in this scenario allows them to achieve the objectives.”
Students are given a chart and a simulated report so they are fully aware before beginning the actual simulation. They then create a concept map using the chart and discuss what kind of things might concern a nurse, depending on the patient’s diagnosis.
When the students are working on the robots, the simulation is as realistic as it can possibly be. The robots can breathe, cough, vomit, blink their eyes, have bowel sounds, lung sounds and even have medical tools attached to them.
The activity nursing students performed on April 18 was “code blue” — an emergency situation where a patient is in cardiopulmonary arrest, which requires a team to rush and attempt to resuscitate the patient.
In this lab, students have to practice describing the process for initiating a code blue response, identifying medications that may be used and the components of SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommendation).
“The code blue lab is probably the most memorable because it’s so intense,” said nursing junior Rajan Bola. “You definitely get a lot of adrenaline and then you get into that fight or flight mode — you get serious and then you have to think about what to do next.”
Simulation labs take place a few times during the semester during a five-hour period. Multiple student groups rotate to perform the same scenario.
“This is one of the schools that has a really good simulation lab, and that’s one of the reasons I chose to come to SJSU,” said Bola. “I really like that we get to do this in the program.”
