TCL’s new Nursing Simulation Center provides students with ‘real-world’ medical experiences

It’s a routine Thursday morning in what appears to be a busy hospital room. A patient with a history of lupus, steroid use and anxiety is experiencing chest pains and shortness of breath and it’s only getting worse.

“I feel like my heart is racing,” the patient says. Nearby, a monitor displays her vital signs.

Suddenly the patient goes into cardiac arrest and everyone in the room jumps into action. For the next few minutes, CPR and other life-saving actions are administered. It almost seems real. Except it isn’t.

This is the Technical College of the Lowcountry’s new Nursing Simulation Center.

Located in the Health Sciences building on the college’s Beaufort Mather campus, the roughly 625-square-foot space consists of two mock hospital rooms, classroom space, a control room with new software and technology and mechanized mannequins which stand in for patients.  It’s all designed to look and feel like the real thing.

“The goal is to have ‘practice ready’ nurses,” says Anne Podnar-Calvo, lab and clinical coordinator for TCL’s nursing program. As she goes on to explain, the new simulation center provides students with not only the opportunity to practice what they have learned but a place to put it all together and in as close to a real-world scenario as possible.

“So our students are able to practice what they have learned in a mock practice setting, while supported by their instructors,” she said.

Learning in Action

So how does it work?

Once students are briefed on a patient’s medical history and current health status, they are then put through a training exercise or scenario. Scenarios can vary from a patient in labor to a person who has just been admitted to the emergency room.

During the exercise, nursing students might perform any number of actions such as performing an assessment, starting an IV line or administering CPR. From behind a two-way mirror in the centralized control room, Podnar-Calvo can watch and record what’s happening in the other room.

On this day for instance, students take turns performing CPR while TCL instructors play the roles of discharge and respiratory nurse. From a computer inside the control room, Podnar-Calvo can manipulate the patient’s vital signs.

She also plays the part of the patient, or at least her voice, by speaking into a headset equipped with a microphone. In the other room, her voice is projected from a mannequin.

Based on this interaction and the patient’s vital signs, it’s up to the students to decide what to do next. Fortunately, their actions soon have the patient’s heart beating once again.

After the scenario concludes, students regroup in the classroom next door and Podnar-Calvo debriefs them using specialized recording software and annotations she was able to easily make in the system. The software, for example, can record not only the number of chest compressions made but the rate and depth of compressions as well.

“So you can go back and ask, ‘What would you have done differently here in this moment,’” she says. “Or say, ‘You did this really well.’ There is just so much capability to the technology.”

Interim Dean for TCL’s School of Nursing Vandy Amason agrees and says the new simulation center is a great addition to the program and may be utilized in other disciplines at TCL as well.

“It’s a game-changer in how we prepare future nurses,” she said. “It bridges the gap between classroom learning and real-world practice, helping students build the confidence and competence they need before entering clinical practice.”

But the technology isn’t employed in a vacuum. It takes the skills and imagination of dedicated nursing instructors to get the most out of the system.

Podnar-Calvo, who has over 30 years of experience in nursing as an RN, began teaching at TCL in 2023. In that time, lab simulation in education has become a specialty area, she says. In fact, Podnar-Calvo is preparing to obtain certification as a Certified Healthcare Simulation Educator, a certification offered by the Society for Simulation in Healthcare.

“So when coupled with the expertise our nursing faculty members bring to the table, this is another wonderful resource we can offer and something we think sets TCL’s nursing program apart from others,” Amason says.

Back in the center, the class is preparing to review the morning’s simulation.

Second year nursing student Victoria Campbell said she thought the exercise went well.

“It really helped and helped us to take action faster and also stay organized,” she said.

Another second-year nursing student, Zachary Brittain, agreed.

“It was a lot more realistic than just using a mannequin,” he added. “It helped me to stay calm and will help me to stay calm when a situation actually happens.”

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