Students of the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing have access to two locations for skills training and immersive simulations. The Charles F. & Peggy Evans Center for Caring Skills within the NHWSN building and the Wesley Woods Graduate Simulation and Skills Facility within the Emory University Hospital at Wesley Woods.
The Evans Center is predominantly used for undergraduate student experiences. Four open-ward rooms facilitate students working in small groups to learn basic nursing skills and physical assessment techniques. When these activities are not taking place, the rooms are set up for various immersive simulations, many of which incorporate multiple simulated patients; and a combination of simulators and task trainers the met learning objectives of the course for that day. A variety of human patient simulator manikins of varying gender, ethnicity, ages, and technological capabilities are used to provide students with a range of educational experiences.
The Wesley Woods Graduate Simulation and Skills Facility includes an outpatient clinic space with fully functional clinic-style patient examination rooms, a flexible classroom space with four simulated patient bays, and several small meeting rooms. The exam rooms are mostly used for teaching advanced assessment of both adults and children using standardized patients and guided teaching models for simulations and invasive assessment procedures, such as pelvic examinations. The classroom space is used for teaching advanced skills training of invasive procedures, such as intubation and central line insertion. There is a space set-up as an operating room for the nurse anesthesia program. Various types of simulators and task trainers are used for training.
These links are for faculty and staff only.
School of Nursing faculty are active in efforts to improve simulation education, research, and practice. Learn more about a handful of these studies.
An Innovative Educational Approach Integrating Simulation, Classroom, and Clinical Practice for Teaching Pediatric Nursing
Through the use of simulation, classroom lecture was matched with simulated patient scenarios. Concurrent with simulation, the instructors teaching students in the practice setting review the simulation materials for each week. In this way, clinical practice assignments are matched with simulation scenarios and lecture content.
Comparison of Virtual Simulation to Clinical Practice for Pre-licensure Nursing Students in Pediatrics
The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease) pandemic has required a transition from in-person clinical practice to virtual. This study compares the standardized assessment test scores of pre-licensure nursing students who completed their pediatric clinical practicum in person for both the clinical and simulation practice settings versus virtually.
Assessing baccalaureate nursing students’ knowledge and attitudes of social determinants of health after a health equity simulation
For nursing students, competency in population health management involves acquiring knowledge and forming attitudes about the impact of the social determinants of health (SDoH) on health equity. The purpose of this pilot study was to assess nursing students’ knowledge and attitudes about the SDoH and health equity following a focused simulation activity.
Use of an Emergency Preparedness Disaster Simulation With Undergraduate Nursing Students
This is a report of an educational strategy to prepare nursing students to respond to disasters. The strategy includes an emergency preparedness disaster simulation (EPDS) implemented in a school of nursing simulation lab using patient simulators, task trainer mannequins, and live actors.The EPDS immerses student groups into a “tornado ravaged assisted‐living facility” where the principles of emergency preparedness can be employed.
Since 1905, the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing (NHWSN) has evolved from a small training program in a fifty-bed hospital to an internationally renowned school that now enrolls more than 1,000 baccalaureate, masters, and doctoral students each year.
NHWSN is expanding its footprint and renovating 70,000 square feet in Decatur, Ga. to become the Emory Nursing Learning Center. The $20.6M expansion will include a state-of-the-art simulation and skills lab, which will provide experiential and immersive learning for students, and the Emory Nursing Experience, a program for continuing professional education in partnership with Emory Healthcare Nursing.
Support for this project will help ensure that NHWSN remains a leader in nursing education.
“Our vision for the Emory Nursing Learning Center is to help meet the complex, chaotic, and quickly changing needs of patients, families, clinical settings, and health care systems that rely on nurses who can make fast-but-effective decisions, contribute to teams, communicate well and mitigate errors,” Dean Linda McCauley said. “I’m very excited to see this cutting-edge facility take shape and expand our services beyond campus and traditional sites.”
Recreating reality in simulation spaces
More dynamic simulation technology as we know it today came from the airline industry. Pilots once sat in cardboard boxes to learn how to fly a plane safely but now they practice in high-tech cockpits fitted with virtually all the same controls as the real thing.
