Fall 2012 marks a hallmark year for growing nursing class
Janel Shoun-Smith |
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Dedication of the
Thursday, Oct. 25 |
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Fall 2012 is turning out to be a hallmark year for Lipscomb’s School of Nursing in a number of ways. Not only did the university debut the new Nursing and Health Sciences Center, but also the nursing school enrolled more majors than ever before, welcomed a new executive associate dean and is celebrating the first group of student nurses to move through a completely Lipscomb-administered curriculum.
The fall 2012 nursing class includes 36 seniors and 79 juniors, the most nursing majors ever since the program started in 2003. The juniors will be the first nursing class to receive all their nursing training through Lipscomb, after a partnership with Vanderbilt University was dissolved in 2010.
“They are all very proud of their new building and of being in a place where people really notice that nursing is a vital part of campus,” said new nursing executive associate dean Beth Youngblood. “This is a time to start new traditions and they get to be the ones who establish those traditions.”
They started those new traditions with Popsicles and Painting, a gathering in August to welcome their new dean and socialize while painting the Bison statue and eating low-fat popsicles (under 200 calories each!). They capped off the Bison’s new paint job with a nurses cap on his head.
“It was a great way to announce, ‘Here we are!’” said Kimberly Smith , coordinator of operations for the School of Nursing.
The school will announce, “Here we are!” to the community at-large on Oct. 25, when the new 24,800-square-foot Nursing and Health Sciences Center will be dedicated. The student nurses are already studying in the building, which can hold up to 100 students in each classroom.
The $8.5-million building also includes a skills assessment lab, the best equipped health simulation lab in the Middle Tennessee region, and a wealth of common space with whiteboards and computer hook-ups to allow student nurses to study collaboratively in small groups.
To see more details on the Health Simulation Lab and the patient mannequins, click here.
“Our new building sends the message that Lipscomb is a stand-alone bachelor’s nursing program that can match any other program around,” said Youngblood.
In fact, with 16 patient mannequins in hospital beds, the ability to use electronic health records at bedside and a full-time lab coordinator, Lipscomb’s health simulation lab presents a superior educational environment for those who are interested in nursing as a profession, Youngblood said.
“It really has the feel of a true hospital unit,” she said. “We are able to do high-fidelity simulations for our students, meaning we will use interactive simulators that can respond to our interventions and change their course of care. And we can also videotape the entire scenario for analysis later.”
Lipscomb's new Health Simulation Lab
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- The new health simulation laboratory in the Nursing and Health Sciences Center includes 16 hospital beds and patient simulation mannequins that can all run simulations at the same time.
- “That is about the size of the typical hospital unit, so it really feels like a true hospital environment,” said Youngblood, noting that the lab has more updated patient simulators and simulated EHR (Emergency Health Record) at each station than any other training facility in the area.
- The health simulation laboratory is the best equipped simulation lab in Middle Tennessee at the moment, said Youngblood. Roger Davis, dean of the College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, said the next best equipped such lab is at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City.
- With a laptop located at each bedside, the Lipscomb lab is equipped to use and teach electronic records charting, which very few nursing schools have at this point, said Youngblood. In addition, Lipscomb has a dedicated lab coordinator and full-time lab faculty.
- The Lipscomb mannequins are able to do “high fidelity simulations,” which means they have additional features over other mannequins, such as wireless control, voices and the ability for students to do critical care assessments. The lab includes equipment to videotape students working through simulations at four of the beds. And the mannequins come with wireless tablet computers that allow a professor to step back and let the students work independently but to also document everything they are doing.
- The mannequins can bleed, vomit, cough, suffer cardiac arrest, display abnormal heart and breath sounds, display pupil dilation and constriction (a symptom of neurological problems) and give birth. The three-month-old baby mannequin can suffer respiratory distress, and the child mannequins can suffer from asthma and seizures.
- “Uncle Harvey,” the cardiac trainer mannequin, will allow faculty to teach kinesiology and pharmacy students, as well as nursing students, what numerous heart arrhythmias and heart murmurs sound like. Uncle Harvey comes with various heart trouble scenarios that include chest x-rays and EKG monitor strips, for students to check during a simulation.
- The units are equipped with blood pressure cuffs, IV pumps and fully functioning headwalls.
- “Lipscomb also has a mannequin family (mother, father, baby and child), who can all be programmed to show the same symptoms, allowing for future disaster training or a simulation where the whole family has been affected by a gas leak, for example,” said Youngblood.
- Not only can the health simulation lab treat numerous patient mannequins at one time, but it is equipped with oxygen, so that it can be used as a triage site for real people in a real-world disaster situation. Lipscomb officials have hopes of using the facility to conduct disaster drills and train Red Cross workers in the future.
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