Nursing Simulation Lab Coordinator Kathy Koepke works with Ann Marie, the department’s new high-tech manikin giving students a chance to practice more advanced skills in the lab.
The female adult Laerdal manikin features special features including the ability to make a variety of heart and lung sounds that help the nursing students learn their assessment skills. The manikin’s chest rises and falls as it breaths and it features several reservoirs that can be filled to simulate bodily fluids such as blood and urine.
The manikin is tether-less and comes with SimPad Plus, a computerized tablet that allows users to set vital signs on the fly that can be felt, seen and heard. Nursing students are able to do CPR, insert trach tubes, give IV medications and practice a variety of other nursing skills using the new manikin.
The department’s new Super Tory manikin will soon be used by students to practice skills in infant care thanks to a donation by Jim and Ann Marie Maciej.
The donation also allowed for the purchase of a second manikin a wireless baby, Super Tory that will help students practice skills unique to working with an infant. Super Tory can turn blue to simulate lack of oxygen and kick its legs and arms just as a real infant patient would.
“Having the learning simulation environment as real as possible has shown increased student learning and patient safety because students have mastered skills in the lab setting before working with real patients,” said Kathy Koepke, Nursing Science Lab coordinator.
The adult female manikin is named Ann Marie in honor of donors Jim and Ann Marie Maciej, who donated $1 million in 2018 for new Nursing Simulation Labs and technology in support of the Nursing program.
Ann Marie was installed in late February by a Laerdal Technician and IT Technician Bret Allie.
“We appreciate the collaborative effort and relationship between IT and nursing,” Koepke said. “We could not do what we do without the support of IT.”
