News in Nursing

The Associate Degree Nursing Program at RCC received Carl Perkins funding to purchase SimMan, a mannequin. SimMan is a full body, adult manikin that allows the simulation of basic and advanced life support skills and assessment to develop both individual and team nursing skills. The simulator allows observations and recognition of most vital signs, a 12-lead EKG, x-rays, and includes vocal interaction with students. These features support the nursing student's competence ability to create a specific nursing plan of care based on active observation as opposed to being prompted by nursing instructor cues.

SimMan is operated through software which is run on a PC. This software allows for automatic and manual logging of scenario events and also can be captured on video. This feature enables the nursing students and instructors to critique each student intervention and decision made during a particular scenario and further influence student learning after the scenario is complete.