BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WIAT) – Some UAB nursing students were put to the test Friday morning with an intense training simulation. This simulation aimed to help pediatric acute care nurse practitioner students in their final semester to be prepared for any situation.
“It was an exhilarating chaos,” said Michael Lynch, one of the 36 students graduating from the track this month.
Mass casualty events are situations nursing students and professors hope to never see in real life but know they need to be prepared for.
“It’s a bus crash, so we have the bus driver come in, who’s a mannequin, who’s actually in cardiac arrest, and while they’re caring for one patient, they’re hearing outside the room other nurses scream for help, so they have to decide and delegate who comes out to help those patients,” said Dr. Jeremy Jordan, the co-coordinator of the special track at UAB.
The “patients” are a mix of mannequins and real kids with fake injuries.
“We can have our mannequins do things like talk to us, their pupils can change, their breath sounds can change, which are not things that a lot of other universities can say,” Jordan said. “That mix of mannequins and real children really brings home kind of the realness and pulls the student back into the simulation, so they don’t ever think that they’re sitting in the school, they think they’re sitting in a real hospital.”
Jordan says watching the students during the simulation gives him hope for the future of the profession.
“It’s incredible to see their leadership skills, their delegation skills, how they really transitioned into that professional role as a nurse practitioner,” he said. “I think that it makes all the difference in the world for our students because it gives them the confidence ‘if I can handle a situation like that, I can handle the situation that comes at me when I have my real job when I graduate.’”
Lynch says this simulation is great practice where you can make decisions in a safe environment knowing professors are right behind you.
“That’s just things we hear about in movies. This is things that you just see on the news, and to be able to live it and really see how you are going to react within the situation is really eye-opening,” Lynch said.
The 36 nursing students are set to graduate this month.
“When you’re approached by a pediatric nurse practitioner to care for your child, if they’re a UAB graduate, you can be really certain that they’re going to take excellent care of your kid,” Jordan said.
The post UAB nursing students undergo mass casualty simulation appeared first on WHNT.
