Fake body parts boost nursing students' learning

THIBODAUX, La. (AP) - The simulation classroom on the second floor of Nicholls State University's Betsy Cheramie Ayo Hall looks like a hospital room.

There are adjustable hospital beds. Racks of chemical drips, packaged blood and lengths of tube hang overhead. There's a tower of shelves stuffed with tubes, gloves and bags of various solutions.

There's even a collection of arms, legs, hands and torsos.

While at first it looks like something out of a horror movie, the fake body parts make up an integral part of the school's new nursing department program, which allows students to practice on realistic dummies using real equipment.

"This gives us a safe environment for them to make mistakes, to get the shakes and nervousness out of the way," said Amanda Eymard, a nursing instructor. "This lets them get hands-on experience, instead of just watching the instructor do something."

This is the first year Nicholls has had the state-of-the art equipment. It was bought using a $115,000 grant from the Board of Regents, which oversees all of the state's public postsecondary education.

The grant paid for 20 IV drug-pump machines, tubing, simulation dummies and other materials.

Before, the nursing problem only had one pump, requiring students to crowd around while an instructor demonstrated how to operate the machinery.

"Having 60 students with one pump doesn't allow enough time for a student to have the hands-on experience they need to be confident," instructor Jeanne Hamner said. "Now we have more than enough."

The pumps are like the ones that in hospitals used to attach IV drips that distribute blood, painkillers and other drugs. Some have the analgesic distribution systems found in many recovery and burn wards, which allow patients to control the flow of painkillers.

"Before, it wasn't until we would take them to real hospitals that they would actually get to program one of these," Eymard said. "Now we have enough machines that every student can practice it before they go out there."

The dummy body parts have realistic skin and veins that can be filled with fake blood to simulate real-life procedures.

The dummies even have different skin types. Some are thick-skinned, while others are thin and frail to simulate older patients.

"It's as close as they can possibly get to real skin," Hamner said.

Some of the dummy arms are connected to computers that assess a students' performance, generating reports detailing what students did right and wrong.

Besides allowing students to become proficient at inserting and managing IVs before using them in the real world, the dummies allow them to practice some skills they can't on live patients.

"Students aren't allowed to administer blood," Eymard said. "That's one of those things where big problems can happen. These simulators allow our students to practice doing that, because it's very important that they know how it all works."

The lab is set up to mimic a hospital. All the supplies are stacked on a shelf; when students need to find equipment or fluids, they have to find them themselves - quickly.

"It used to be that when they practiced they'd have everything they needed laid out ahead of time," Eymard said. "Then when they got to the real hospitals, doctors would say "I need this, go get it," and students would kind of panic looking at those big shelves."

Nursing students say the new equipment has made their classes much more useful - and much more exciting.

"When you go into the hospitals, you only get one chance to learn what you're supposed to do," said Jessica Chaisson, a senior from Thibodaux. "It's much better now that we have something we can practice on."

Nicholas Griffin, a senior from Houma, said there were some minor limitations to the dummies, but it was overall "very useful."

"You're going to run into some differences. A 300-pound person isn't going to work the same way as this little dummy," he said. "But almost everything is like it is in real life, and that's great."