Educational Opportunities Abound via Nursing Simulation Scenarios

Code blue. Imagine the scene: an unattended four year-old boy falls into his family's pool and is unable to keep afloat. His mother finds him a minute later, but the boy is unresponsive and unable to breathe. An EMT crew arrives on the scene and transports him to the emergency room, where a staff of attending doctors, hospitalists, and nurses work together to save the boy's life. This is the sort of high-stress, high-stakes event that might take place in a hospital on any given day. But when the patient's life is on the line, every step is critically important to a successful outcome. How can a healthcare team – and especially the on-call nurses – learn how to react before they're faced with a real emergency? Nursing simulation scenarios are a good place to start.

Nursing simulation scenarios are scripted events that aid in the education of nursing learners and practicing nurse professionals. In order to make the scenario realistic, the author researches a specific event and includes all the necessary details for the learner to understand exactly what has happened to the patient and how to go about making a correct diagnosis. Related documents such as x-rays, charts, and photographs may also be included to increase case tactility.

Low-fidelity nursing simulation scenarios may be paper-based, or utilize a task trainer or low-fidelity human patient simulator. Likewise, high-fidelity nursing simulation scenarios require a high-fidelity human patient simulator, and often take place within a clinical simulation laboratory—or even in-situ or on the go.

Also, more and more nursing education programs are now adding standardized patients (SPs) or actors into the simulation mix. SPs are trained to portray a patient with one or more medical conditions with accuracy and consistency, and can directly respond to the nursing learner's questions, prompts, and care guidelines. Nursing simulation scenarios that include both SPs and task trainers provide additional realism—for instance, an SP may be portraying a woman in labor, crying out in pain and interacting with the learner just as she's operating a pelvic task trainer. The SP can "deliver" the baby through the simulated pelvis and allow the learner to practice OB and generalized clinical skills within a lifelike delivery room setting, all without posing a risk to a real mother or baby. In fact, some childbirth nursing simulation scenarios are now so sophisticated as to include complication modules, including breach births and caesarian sections! For a nursing learner, these training events are invaluable for gaining the skills needed for successful care delivery.

And as for the four year-old drowning victim: he's a high fidelity human patient simulator. He's being controlled by a simulation lab administrator based on the scenario. The nursing learners can treat him and lead him on the path to recovery—and be glad that his frightening narrative is in fact a valuable educational tool. With nursing simulation scenarios, learners can feel confident that they'll know how to handle tough clinical situations when they begin to practice in a real care environment.

About Bio:

The author of the article has extensive experience in the field of Nursing Simulation Scenarios and Medical Simulation.

This Article Is Written By a Professional Author