Simulation center for experimenting and learning

With an investment of nearly 1 billion pesos in facility renovations, furniture, and simulators, future nurses, according to Adriana Marcela Perdomo, a teacher and coordinator of these facilities, “will be able to use these educational resources, which simulate patients, in their classroom practice. The goal is for them to develop skills and abilities in medication administration, nasogastric and bladder catheterization, childbirth assistance, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, IV insertion, and neonatal care, among others.”.

This academic space has five rooms equipped with high-fidelity 4G simulators. Using a SIMPAD PLUS tablet, the instructor can control all the simulator's health variables so students can practice. “Several of them cough, talk, and shout. For example, vital signs can be programmed, and once the student has examined the 'patient,' they must identify them and state the blood pressure, pulse, and respiratory sounds, which must match the values entered into the system. There's also one that simulates a woman in labor.“.

The facility has two rooms, each equipped with a Gesell observation room—a specially designed side room that allows for the observation of individuals through a soundproof window. The instructor observes the student's actions in this room and provides feedback on what went well and what went wrong. "It also has a microphone connected to a speaker, through which the instructor can give instructions to the student or connect to a simulator to simulate the patient, describing their symptoms or any other relevant clinical scenario.".

This simulation center, serving as an academic space, has been operational since February of this year, and nursing students from their third through tenth semesters use it. “They can practice basic and specialized procedures in these rooms, which are equipped with mid-range and high-end simulators. While it doesn't replace reality, it does approximate it, and that's important in the training process.”.

For Jessica Valentina Medina, a ninth-semester nursing student, “these resources are very important because they bring us much closer to what life is like in a hospital or health center, and they teach us to overcome our fear of the different procedures we will face when we enter the workforce.”.

Thanks to these educational tools, she has learned key topics for any nurse. “I’ve been involved in childbirth, infant resuscitation, catheter insertion, and other procedures, thanks to these simulators that have helped me develop professionally.”.

In this way, UCundinamarca works to improve pedagogical processes through the purchase of new technologies that aim to train professionals who are in tune with the advances and realities demanded by the working world.

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