Health Professions

The College of Health Professions has three different laboratories that prepare students for the role of the professional nurse:

• The Learning Resource Center  (aka Skills Laboratory)
• The Assessment Lab
• The Simulation Lab

In the newly renovated Learning Resource Center students are taught basic and complex nursing skills.  Nursing skills range from bathing a patient to giving injections to a patient. Utilizing a simulation foundation, skills are taught using five intermediate fidelity human patient simulators.  Through simulation the student learns that ultimately there is a patient at the end of the skill that they are learning.  Quality and Safety for Nursing Education principles are imbedded in the skills laboratory course so that the learner carries the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes into nursing practice.

Wall mounted opthalmoscopes and otoscopes, along with other assessment equipment can be found in the newly created assessment laboratory.  The assessment lab is set up as a mini-clinic with exam tables.  This lab is utilized by students in health assessment as they learn advanced head to toe assessment techniques.

The College of Health Professions also has a state-of-the-art Simulation Laboratory. The Simulation Lab houses two adult high fidelity Sim Man simulators, one high fidelity Sim Man 3G, one infant high fidelity simulator and two Meti Pediatric high fidelity simulators. The lab is set up to look and feel like a real hospital with a realistic electronic drug administration cart and other real-to-life equipment that is seen in the hospital setting. The simulation laboratory provides students with opportunities to apply advance care concepts in a learning environment that is non-threatening.  The simulation laboratory also allows students to become active participants in code blue and other high risk nursing events which would otherwise be limited to students in a real hospital environment. In addition to the human patient simulators, the Simulation Laboratory has a haptic devise for teaching IV insertion and other state-of-the-art equipment for student utilization.  Students will also be exposed to standardized patients in the simulation laboratory.  Standardized patients are real live human actors who interact with students as patients in order to perfect their communication and critical thinking skills.