Simulation Training: Does Training in a Real Hospital Bed Help Nursing Students?

In the field of healthcare, simulation refers to activities involving the use of a real clinical environment often with a real hospital bed designed to promote critical thinking and decision-making among care workers. Simulation also enables educators to provide feedback, as well as control the environment around which their training takes place.

Below are the most common types of patient simulation for nursing students:

Simulated Patients

Simulating patients by means of role play between educators and learners is very common not only in medical education, but also in nursing education. Students are typically paired and placed in a training room equipped with medical tools and materials like a dissecting set, a tourniquet, etc. Students are taught how to do patient assessments, history taking, and communicating with other care workers.

Screen-Based Computer Simulators

These simulators are created to model different components of human physiology, environments, and even nursing tasks. Students use various computer programs to observe the possible results of their clinical decisions. Typically, there is feedback during and following the interaction. This method is popular because it is inexpensive, since no equipment is needed. Students don’t have to wear a lab gown and gloves latex during the training as well.

Integrated Simulators

Integrated simulators make use of both computer technology and mannequins so learners can have a more realistic kind of training. This type of simulation is very useful as it takes advantage of modern computer technology while at the same time giving students a feel of the real environmental setting.

Human Patient Simulators

This is one of the latest technological advances in the field of medical and nursing education. These simulators are interactive mannequins designed to offer realistic physiological responses, such as heart sounds, respirations, urinary output, breath sounds, and even pupil reaction. The mannequins can even communicate with students. For instance, they answer basic questions students my ask while applying a micropore tape on the mannequin.

Simulation training among nursing is a recommended strategy aimed at preventing errors and poor decisions in the clinical setting. Nursing students are able to learn how they should respond in various situations, so that when they find themselves in the same actual scenario, they will know what to do. Through a structured simulation training, students also learn to see medical tools such as a dissecting set as not just a piece of equipment, but a tool that can be used for saving lives.