42 D'MENSIONS MAGAZINE D'YOUVILLE UNIVERSITY 43 Dr. Shannon McCrory-Churhill (left), dean of the School of Nursing, and Dr. Amanda Barton, director of nursing simulation and clinical practice, look over the equipment in D’Youville’s state-of-the-art nursing simulation lab, built to replicate the look and feel of a hospital, complete with a nurse’s station. The center is overseen by Dr. Amanda Barton, director of nursing simulation and clinical practice, who says the average D’Youville nursing student will see around 33 total simulations and 100 hours in the lab by the time they graduate. Roughly a third of their clinical time is spent in simulation. “They start with the basics here, like making a bed with a patient in it or communicating with a patient and their family,” Barton says. “And we work all the way up to our senior level, like caring for an intubated patient. We have ventilators set up. Multiple drugs set up. Even the simulated fentanyl is in a lockbox — we try really hard to make things as realistic as possible.” Adding to the realism is the Friends cast, made up for full-body high-tech patient mannequins that bring realism in the form of a pulse, breathing simulations, the ability to bleed and urinate and speech (provided by faculty and supervisors in the control room). “He blinks, he breathes, his chest can rise and fall, he has a pulse everywhere you an have a pulse, he has lung and bowel sounds, and you can put a tube in him anywhere you would put a tube in a patient,” Barton says, standing over “Chandler” in one of the patient bays. Each patient runs the department $80,000 and up, not including the equipment surrounding it. The beds, the machines, the lighting and even the paint schemes, floor tiles, the smells and even the molding along the floors and ceilings are all as close to the real thing in a hospital as you can get, but perhaps the most impressive detail of the lab is the nurses station at the center of it all. For anybody who’s spent any time in a hospital recently, the station is familiar — cabinets, desks, space for records, bulletin boards, phones, medicine storage … it has it all. It’s the spot where a nurse will spend most of their time during a hospital shift, and a big part of a student’s simulation experience at D’Youville is spent at that station. “What happens if a bipolar patient gets out of their room and approaches your station? What do you do? Who else is there to help? What is everybody’s role?” Barton says. “We even work on things like calling providers and calling labs to get patient information. How to approach your charge nurse to ask for help. So much happens here. It’s important that we are able to recreate all of that.” When she was a student, Barton says her first experience with patients, real or fake, was in a hospital, where there is little time for a new nurse to “ease into” their new settings. The reality, she says, is that nurses are often just thrown into the fire — practicing the possibilities before they happen can lead to better outcomes for everyone. The patient is better served, and the nurse is more sure of themselves and less stressed in those important early years of their profession. “This is a place where they can and do make mistakes,” Barton adds. “And it’s OK to do that. It’s OK to have fun in this setting. We want them to relax. We want them to know you’re not going to hurt this mannequin if you do something wrong. But if you do something wrong, we’re going to talk about it and learn from it. And guess what? You’ll never do it again. Do it here. Don’t do it out there.” The lab is just one of the selling points of the now 83-year-old nursing program at D’Youville, McCrory-Churchill says. She also points to smaller class sizes that allow students to interact face-to- face with their professors and not come in “feeling like a number.” She also says students appreciate the options, such as the school’s Family Nurse Practitioner master’s program designed to prepare registered nurses to care for individuals across the lifespan and lead to eligibility for FNP board certification. The Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner master’s program and the Doctor of Nursing Practice program prepare students to take leadership roles on their teams. And D’Youville’s involvement in New York’s Career Pathways Training Program — which offers free tuition and covers fees and supplies for those pursuing healthcare degrees in nursing, mental health counseling, physician assistant, pharmacy technician and other areas — has led to a large influx of students who may not have otherwise been able to afford a four-year undergraduate program. “Nursing isn’t going to disappear. AI isn’t going to take our jobs,” McCrory-Churchill says. “Nurses have been taking on more progressive roles in terms of driving care in our system, and I think that’s why the four-year BSN [and graduate programs] are so important. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a two-year RN degree — they come out incredibly prepared and really well-suited to do the roles that they’re in. But in terms of management and patient care and moving things forward, you need the four-year degree. And that’s where D’Youville really shines.” Sidney Domroes says she wishes D’Youville would have been her first choice as an undergraduate, but she’s happy to be in the accelerated BSN program and enjoys the one-on-one opportunities she has with her professors. “I feel like they really care for us and want to see us do our best. I recently had a situation before one of my exams where I had a panic attack, and that affected my performance. I met with two professors, and they understood my situation. They referred me to counseling services on campus and helped me through a difficult situation.” Joshua Peters — who encouraged his classmates to advocate for their patients, their teams and themselves during his pinning ceremony speech this year — said he came to D’Youville with a lot of self- doubt about his abilities and his future. “Being able to get through this difficult program has shown me a lot. I know I can do it now, and now I can move forward and work toward becoming a nurse practitioner. There’s a whole new set of challenges coming up, but I’m more confident about them now. D’Youville showed me I can handle it, and I’m glad I came here.” The patients in D’Youville’s nursing simulation center can be actual humans, too. Many are brought in to act out real-life symptoms to provide better training for students.
