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Jan 14, 2009 5:45 pm US/Eastern
Lab Puts Nursing Students In Real-Life Situations
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―
The University of Pittsburgh is one of only a half-a-dozen schools in the country providing students in the medical field with real life situations in a safe environment.
It begins with a scenario. An 80-year-old woman is having trouble breathing - suddenly - her heart stops. A nurse begins chest compressions. A defibrilliator malfunctions - chest compressions resume - she is losing ground, "It gets very real." Finally, a heart beat and pulse.
But none of it is real, except for the spike of adrenaline that the student nurses at the University of Pittsburgh experience.
It's a big sense of relief once you see the heart beating and her getting some breaths - it's a big relief," said Eddie Williams, who is in his junior year.
In describing the program, director Paul Phrampus says, "We re-create actual, real medical cases, things that happen in the field for paramedics, things than happen in the hospital, in the emergency departments and in the operating room."
The real stars are the "simulation-patients" - nearly two-dozen of them, costing from $30,000 to 60,000 each play out life and death dramas at the "Winter Institute for Simulation Education and Research" in Oakland.
According to Phrampus, "We already have silmuators that can bleed - that can cry...that can sweat, that can vomit and create realistic situations." A pregnant "sim-mom" provides contractions, a natural delivery, and the baby arriving with umbilical cord attached.
In the mock operating room the patients breathes and bleeds during surgery.
In an adjacent control room professors can program a variety of scenarios to challenge the students so that they can practice everything from bedside manner to emergencies.
Says, Associate Professor Alice Blazek, "If we can put them through simulated scenarios - that they can experience what they need to see and know how they need to respond."
And while some students are on the frontline making split-second decisions - the rest of the class watches on a monitor critiquing the actions says student nurse Michelle Klein-Fedyshn, "What would I do? Would I do what they're doing? - or gee is there something else they should be doing."
These hi-tech patients - missing only the spark of life will save lives - because when it is real - these students will be better ready.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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