Simulation Training Revolutionizes Nursing Education

Simulation training is actively reimagining nursing education across North Carolina and nationwide, moving beyond traditional methods to provide critical hands-on experience for future and current healthcare professionals.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, the School of Nursing, in collaboration with UNC Medical Center and UNC Health Rex, launched a program utilizing actors and realistic scenarios to better address workplace violence. While prevention and de-escalation are taught in the classroom, hands-on experience is necessary to solidify these skills. Workplace violence has historically been minimized, often viewed as simply "part of the job". However, a 2023 survey revealed that eight in ten nurses experienced at least one type of workplace violence within the past year. This problem severely impacts retention and leads to burnout.

The grant-funded UNC-CH program, which utilizes a low-budget classroom setting with human actors, includes scenarios depicting verbal abuse, patient escalation due to feeling unheard, and co-worker bullying. The interactive "tag team" approach ensures engagement, as students can be tagged into the scenario or write suggestions for the director to incorporate. Although the training can be emotionally triggering, positive feedback indicates its extreme value and potential to translate directly into practice. Administrators are highly interested in continuing and expanding the program, which could help address North Carolina’s projected nursing shortage.

Meanwhile, Duke University’s School of Nursing is incorporating advanced technology to enhance empathy and specialized care training. The Center for Nursing Discovery (CND), led by Nikki Petsas Blodgett, utilizes Virtual Reality (VR) headsets to allow students to embody the patient, such as an older adult experiencing blurred vision, decreased hearing, or hallucinations. This immersion provides a powerful experience of being "left out of the healthcare decisions".

The CND also employs hologram machines, allowing students to interact with full-scale, remote patient holograms—often based on common patient types from PACE providers—to practice observing body language and asking questions related to the "Four M’s": mentation, medication, mobility, and what matters. Both the VR and hologram trainings are supported by the NU-AGE-SIM grant, focused on improving care for medically underserved older adults facing behavioral and mental health challenges. Students and alumni from both UNC-CH and ECU praise simulation training for offering a safe environment to learn and make mistakes without fearing impact on an actual patient.

---

🔖 Sources

'Using theater to teach nurses:' Simulation training is shaping the future of nursing education

Simulation Technology is Helping Reimagine Nursing Education

---

Keywords: Simulation Training Nursing

Simulation Training Nursing

---