Hal went to the hospital Friday complaining of chest pains and labored breathing.
The nurses working on him soon realized he was having an irregular heartbeat. They hooked him up to an IV, and started giving him fluids and various medications. It wasn’t enough, however, and minutes later he went into cardiac arrest.
Nurses ran in, started giving him chest compressions and shocked him with a defibrillator.
And just when it seemed like all was lost, the nurses’ teacher stopped them, called their attention to the white board at the front of the classroom and hit Hal’s pause button.
It was an average day in Rivier University’s nursing simulation labs, where students in the program go through real medical scenarios using the high-fidelity patient simulators – like Hal – to learn how to react quickly in an emergency, work well with patients and as a team with other medical professionals.
The simulation labs are nothing new and have been part of the school’s nursing program for about seven years, the mannequins used today are part of a second generation of the tools that now talk like a real patient, blink, react to nurses’ actions, even vomit and give birth to a simulator baby.
“Talk about hands-on experience,” said Rivier undergraduate nursing director Kathy Patenaude.
The simulation mannequins are controlled by the professor in the lab. On Friday, that was Pat Hagan, clinical professor of nursing.![]()
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