Simulation In Nursing Education

The Use of Simulation in Nursing Education Simulation is something that looks, feels, or behaves like something else, usually used for the education or training of people (Merriam-Webster). Simulation has been used as an educational and training tool for hundreds of years by various fields and professions. Recent years have seen an increase in the number of nursing students and a decrease in clinical experience available. The field of nursing has always used some type of simulation in its curriculum and now its use is changing and on the rise. Now we have to ask ourselves: is simulation an acceptable substitute for clinical experience?

History of Simulation In previous years simulation has primarily been used by the military, aviation, doctors

Role-playing simulation can either be between students or actors portraying patients. Low-fidelity manikins are simple foam or plastic forms without any computer programming. Task trainers are usually simple IV arms or foam pads that allow a student to practice giving injections, drawing blood, etc. There are also a number of mid and high fidelity manikins on the market today. Most are programmable or controlled by a computer. Laerdal is a medical devices company that makes a number of these mid and high fidelity manikins. They are most famous for creating Resuci-Anne, the CPR manikin used to teach CPR techniques. Their new manikins have heart, lung, and bowel sounds, generate ECG’s, have blood pressure, and some can even give birth and bleed out. The manikins are programmable and can be customized for different scenarios. They have a range of types of manikins including men, women, children, infants, and newborns. They include Adult SimMan, Simbaby, VitalSim, and Megacode Kelly to name a few. (https://www.samuelmerritt.edu/hssc/human-patient-simulators). The various manikins on the market range from a $300 to

This is also referred to as e-simulation. Cant and Cooper (2014) write “e-simulation is an emerging technology that can be used to broaden the teaching strategies used in health science education” (p. 1435). The styles of web or game-based simulation available vary greatly. There are programs that focus on technical skills like IV insertion and sim or virtual environments that simulate patient care scenarios (Cant & Cooper, 2014). These types of programs encourage users to use critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making skills. The sim or virtual environment programs are referred to as Virtual Clinical Simulation or VCS. Some examples available are “The Neighborhood” and “Second Life”. The American Heart Association even uses e-simulation to teach cardiopulmonary resuscitation and advanced life support (Cant & Cooper, 2014). The cost of these types of programs also varies greatly from free to several thousand