Partnership to help create lab for nursing students

UNLV uses Sim Man, baby in lieu of real patients

UNLV School of Nursing clinical instructor Patrick Kuritz shows off various wounds students get to work on at UNLV?s Bigelow Health Sciences building, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway. A partnership between the school, Nevada State College and the University of Nevada School of Medicine would create a joint skills lab at UNLV?s Shadow Lane campus.Larry Cruikshank/View Advertisement

The UNLV School of Nursing is working toward a partnership with Nevada State College and the University of Nevada School of Medicine to create a joint skills lab for nursing students within the next few years.

The cooperative learning center will be at the site of UNLV's Shadow Lane campus at the corner of Shadow Lane and Charleston Boulevard.

Inside the Bigelow Health Sciences building on the campus of UNLV, students in the nursing school today are working with one Sim Man and one Sim Baby, which are simulations of the human body, complete with pulsing hearts and breathing lungs. If the joint skills lab goes through, students will have more resources available to them, including more than one Sim Man and baby.

"We have to look at the efficient use of resources," said Tish Smyer, associate dean for academic affairs.

Smyer explained that having these simulated patient experiences is crucial to a student's education because professors can allow nursing students to make fatal mistakes so they can see the consequences of their actions.

"(Sim Man) can have every known complication. It's as close as we can get to a real patient," Smyer said.

Nursing majors are required to complete a combination of lab courses, skills labs and on-site hospital care before receiving their degrees. In addition to working with a simulated patient at the university, students practice nursing skills on each other in labs that look more like a hospital recovery room than a classroom.

"Everything they can do in a hospital, they can do in this room," said Carolyn Yucha, dean of the college.

Yucha said that a joint skills lab would ultimately save resources and money for the three schools because they could employ the same technicians to work the Sim people and thus be able to pool their resources to buy more technology for the students' use.

"All of this is really expensive and it requires maintenance," Yucha said. "We believe it gives them a better experience in a safer environment."

During their first week in the program, nursing majors were learning to do health assessments on each other and to accurately measure bodily fluids in two of the university's skills labs.

"It's very hands-on," said Shane Lazaro, a 21-year-old student. "The professors here are really proactive."

Shane explained he and his classmates learned how to do a correct change of bed linens and how to give a bed bath during their first week of classes.

"I would definitely recommend it as a program," said student Camry Jefferson, 21.