E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSSI get a chuckle out of efforts to make robots more lifelike. No doubt this high-tech nursing simulation laboratory is a step forward, but how do they practice their bedside manner?
David Proeber / AP
Kimberly Smith, left, and Stephanie Reed, student nurses at Illinois State University's Mennonite College of Nursing in Normal, Ill., examine one of the school's new high-fidelity patient simulators in the nursing simulation laboratory. State and local officials dedicated the new $2.7 million laboratory with an open house Monday morning. ISU President Al Boman says the growing nursing school has 418 students and 48 full-time faculty members.
Nursing students practice with high-fidelity patient simulators
Explore related topics: health, illinois, normal, mennonite-college-of-nursing, nursing-simulation-laboratory
Leave a Comment:
Instead of buying dummies, how about offering out-of-work people the opportunity to be mock patients?
I've been doing clinical trials for a few years now, and I'd be thrilled if regular offers to be a faux patient came from a nearby teaching facility! Last week, I got a $100 Visa gift card for doing a cardiac MRI (which was my fifth MRI this year, incidentally--one was for medical reasons but three earned me $200 each). The spotty work that comes from doing odd medical trial here and there isn't enough to sustain me, but a steady gig as a hired patient would certainly help out.
Last year, my income was around $5,500 on my W-2s--that's just over half of what is described as the current national poverty rate. I made rent this month with ten cents to spare; the previous month, I had to borrow $100 to make it. Now I have NO rent money for October and will have to borrow it, and because of this, I'll also have to turn in my thirty-day notice (the one good thing that I do have on my side is solid credit, and I'd rather be homeless than lose that cushion of salvation). Some kind of mock-patient gig would be a blessing to someone in my lower-class situation!
Try to tell me that automation is a great thing in this case. I don't buy it. When an educated (B.A., plus two stints in the military--honorable/medical discharges), experienced (20+ years in blue- and white-collar jobs), out-of-work (jobless, but I'm not on welfare, unemployment or Social Security!) person such as myself have been reduced to medical experiments to earn a living... and can't even get that, because it makes more sense for someone to put a dummy to work than a person... then it's time for this country to wake up.
Unfortunately, StandUpJokeOff, they can't make a person have ceratin bowel sounds or certain heart sounds, or certain lung sounds at the exact right moment for learning/testing. Find me someone who has crackles or pleural rub, mitral valve prolapse or congestive heart failure, then pay all those people to be "medical dummy's", hence, skyrocketing the cost of tuition (which is already ridiculously high) and see if you get people to attend college. A one-time cost for a peice of equipment that you can use over and over for years. That's why we can't use people. Don't talk about things that you don't understand, or have the knowledge-base to develop opinions on. And nurses can't learn bedside manner, they should already posess that specific atribue if they're nursing students.
Unfortunately, StandUpJokeOff, they can't make a person have ceratin bowel sounds or certain heart sounds, or certain lung sounds at the exact right moment for learning/testing. Find me someone who has crackles or pleural rub, mitral valve prolapse or congestive heart failure, then pay all those people to be "medical dummy's", hence, skyrocketing the cost of tuition (which is already ridiculously high) and see if you get people to attend college. A one-time cost for a peice of equipment that you can use over and over for years. That's why we can't use people. Don't talk about things that you don't understand, or have the knowledge-base to develop opinions on. And nurses can't learn bedside manner, they should already posess that specific atribue if they're nursing students.
StandUpJokeOff, you're thinking of a different kind of med student training, that of SPs (Standardized Patients). SPs are used for practicing taking patient histories and other routine exam techniques (I think, that's the other side of the building I work in - I'm the Simulator Technician at a leading med school in the country). As daisysak said, real people can't produce specific sounds or heart rhythms on demand... unless the one you're demanding is the one they already have.
Also, if you can barely afford rent (or can't afford for some months), why are you spending for an internet connection? Wouldn't that money be better spent on needs, not wants?
You think the little bit of money I pay for an internet connection makes any real impact on the hundreds of dollars that I pay for rent? Get a grip.
Yes, every little bit counts. If you drop the internet connection, let's call it $25 per month, that's $300 per year that you could put towards something that you actually NEED, like shelter or food, because the spotty work that comes from doing odd medical trials isn't enough to sustain you. It is, however, enough to sustain your non-necessary internet connection. But what do I know, I obviously don't have a grip, seeing as how I can afford to pay rent and internet.
In an effort to help you out, I'll give you some information (free of charge!) gleaned from a tour around the country that I recently went on: there were help wanted signs in just about every place I stopped, whether for food, gas, or to spend the night. Just drive around wherever you are for a little bit (or listen to the radio) and you're more than likely to see or hear an ad for help. Most of the semis I saw had stickers asking for drivers, which I think had paid training. Otherwise, check craigslist's job section for wherever you are.
I digress. The purpose of using simulators is so that students can make mistakes and learn from them without causing damage or loss of life. Doctors used to be trained to do a procedure in a three-step process: first, watch a doctor do a procedure. Second, the doctor would guide the learner through the procedure, then the learner is on his own (with the doctor supervising) for the third step. Nowadays, students can perform the procedure multiples times before ever touching a live patient. Which would you prefer? And no, you can't say the experienced doctor - their experience had to come from somewhere, would you like that experience to be you?
Simulation also lowers healthcare costs. Patients insurance rates can go down because they are seeing doctors that have more practice than their non-simulation-taught counterparts. Doctor's malpractice insurance rates go down because they've more effectively learned from their mistakes that they made on simulators.
Think looks like "Fire Marshal Bill"