Back in our own skills lab

A lot of thoughts after that visit to the amazing Sim skills lab in Cincinnati - one of the most interesting and concerning things to me was the lack of culture and ethnicity among the mannequins. There was one African-American mannequin. One. Dare I say "token"? When I asked how they might develop a scenario with a, say, Hispanic theme, the answer was, well they could dress the mannequin like a Hispanic! Really? Does that mean in a serape and a sombrero? Can we say stereotype? One of the most important areas in nursing is being sensitive to culture. However, no skills lab that I have yet seen, save for this one lone mannequin of color, have any culturally diverse mannequins. Yet more than 50% of the patients that nurses see identify as "other". They are not Caucasian. It seems we pay lip service to culture, while in our skills labs we see only whites. We say we are developing realistic scenarios with these new, incredibly expensive mannequins, but again, it's a whites only club. I call on the schools of nursing and the Sim manufacturers out there to change THIS scenario. This is not real life, and we need to reflect reality truthfully in our skills labs.


There. I'm getting off my soapbox for now.

Back in our skills lab, Sherleena decided we need to at least give our Sims a little more personality! Teri, Sherleena and I along with some of the students had a great time making them "real"! Check it out:

Applying eyelashes and makeup

Whew. That was tough, we need a rest.

Visit to a Sim Lab!

Last week, Sherleena and I went to Good Samaritan College of Nursing and Health Science in Cincinnati for a meeting of the Tri-State Nursing Skills Lab Consortium. This is a group of nurses from the three states (I have no idea which three - except for Ohio) who get together and share ideas and "recipes"(more about that later) for their Sim lab mannequins. The sales rep from Laerdal, the premier maker of these Sim people, was there and gave a demonstration of all the things the 3G Sim person can do. OU just purchased one of these guys for our skills lab and we wanted to see how he/she performed. Boy, was it impressive! I took a quick video with my iPhone - it's not very good, but if you loaok closely, you can see his eyes blink occasionally, and he's breathing. He also can bleed - arterial or venous - and he can have 2 kinds of seizures - tonic or tonic-clonic - his lips can turn blue, his tongue can swell, he can talk, scream, moan, puke, urinate, defecate, have edematous limbs, has all the pulses you and I do, he can cry real tears, have many kinds of heart rhythms, and on and on.... it's a bit weird and a lot cool. And then we took a tour of their skills lab.... Holy Toledo....er, Cincinnati! We had to pick up our chins from the floor. It is a lab to envy! Here are the pictures:

EKG monitor for the 3G mannequin

Showing us how he bleeds!

Sim control station

This is their HUGE skills lab - about 20 mannequins in electric beds, fully equipped.

Another view

Child mannequin

With 02 mask

Sherleena checking it out!

The one mannequin of color....more about that later

Bedside table and suction equipment

Headboard with gloved and sharps container

Using an old nylon - a  tattoo "sleeve" was made for this mannequin!

To practice tracheostomy care

They even have a storage room...

with a washer and dryer!

SimMan 3G

The New Man in town: or in the nursing lab! Awesome! Now, to learn how to take care of him... conference on Friday - we'll let you know what we learn!