Acute Respiratory Failure In Nursing

It is essential for nursing students to have high-quality educational experiences that prepare them for the skills, critical thinking, and deductive reasoning needed to provide competent patient care. Traditional clinical experiences involve direct patient care in a health care facility. However, many programs are facing clinical challenges such as increased outpatient services, high acuity inpatients, instructor to student ratios unconducive to direct instruction, competition for limited sites, short staffing, quality initiatives, and patient safety initiatives (Hayden, Smiley, Alexander, Kardong-Edgren, & Jeffries, 2014).

Clinical simulation enables students to experience the challenges and complexities of caring for patients in a safe learning

The simulation would be very similar to what I did as a nurse with the mock codes referring to a very common infection that we see in the pediatric population, which is respiratory syncytial virus (RSV). Often times, the patient with RSV can deteriorate rapidly into acute respiratory failure.

For the scenario that I would run with students, they would be admitting an 18-month-old boy with RSV. Upon assessment of the child, you note that he appears to be in distress. His oxygen saturation is 84% on room air, using accessory muscles to breath, respiratory rate 34, and cyanosis around the lips is noted. What would be your first nursing actions that you would take for this patient?

• At this time, I would want students to recognize the signs and symptoms of respiratory distress. Some interventions that I would expect them to take are administering oxygen via facemask, contacting the physician, attaching the child to a heart, respiratory, and sat monitor, calming the family by educating them regarding the situation, and delegating tasks to other team members. Depending on the facility that they are educated in, this would warrant calling a rapid response code as

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