Technology performs a significant part in every profession. It has surpassed all the dimensions of the healthcare field too. There is an obvious advancement in the technologies used in hospital configurations as well as education settings. Starting from the evaluation of sufferers, to the treatment methods, a variety of equipment has taken over the part of nurses. For example, EMR has replaced the manual documentation of patient care. The EMR was incorporated into the medical work-flow to maintain right documentation of patient details and care and to ensure safe, quality care to the patients. Just like the clinical setting, technologies are advancing in the area of nursing education as well. The introduction of simulators in nursing has bridged the gap between classroom education and medical practice.
What is simulator and what role does it play in the nursing education? It is the imitation or duplication of a scenario or an event that one would deal with in real life (Sasser, 2011). Simulation has been used in the health care field for quite some time now. It has undergone a lot of changes from the first life sized manikin popularly known as Mrs. Chase, to the high fidelity full body simulators. A nurse gains information through academic research, realistic sessions, case research, and conferences and so on Nurses learn theory in school and get their realistic exposure in the clinical settings. In many cases, learners are unable to think critically and are anxious while providing care to the sufferers. Moreover, their level of confidence is pretty low and that affects their overall performance. Simulation plays a central part in today’s nursing education.
Going back to early 20th century, nursing learners practiced their abilities on hypodermic injection pads, IM hypodermic injection on oranges and so on. After few decades, the life size manikin Mrs. Chase took over the nursing skill area and she became more popular nationwide, as well as globally. Over the decades, the simulators experienced significant changes and now, it plays an important part in improving the nurses’ actual skills. Standardized sufferers are well-trained individuals who mimic a part so that the nursing learners can practice their skills of evaluation and enhance their interaction abilities. High fidelity manikins are used in the educational set ups to enable learners to practice and enhance advanced medical skills. These are trainer driven and allow learners to practice their nursing, critical thinking, decision making and interaction abilities in a given patient scenario. Simulation is helpful in many ways. It enhances essential medical abilities like crucial considering, decision-making and evaluation and permits them to handle challenging situations in a secure and controlled environment. This in turn enhances the student’s confidence in dealing with an identical scenario in the near future. In addition, nursing learners are allowed to get some things wrong in a safe scenario.
