Professor uses manikins to enhance teaching
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Penny deCarvalho: State-of-the-art nursing
While Penny deCarvalho was working on her masters in nursing at the University of Texas at Arlington, she took nine months off to join a group project of reestablishing a hospital in Washington D.C. that had shut down. Her job was to develop an education program to teach nurses how to work with simulations, using high-fidelity computer interactive manikins. The manikins are state-of-the-art dummies that make it easier for nursing students to learn every procedure they could possibly encounter in an actual work environment.
When she returned to complete her masters, deCarvalho was accepted into UTA’s doctoral program as well. Today she is completing both degrees simultaneously. Her experience with nursing education has motivated her to pursue research in nursing education and how manikins can enhance the learning experience.
Since her arrival at SWAU this year as assistant professor of nursing, deCarvalho has been working to bring the simulation programs to the campus. According to deCarvalho, most universities invest 25 percent of their clinical time in work with the same high-fidelity manikins that she wants the University to use.
"The goal is to quickly make SWAU state of the art," she says.
DeCarvalho felt all along that if God wanted the University to have the manikins for the nursing program, He would provide. With deCarvalho’s promptings and the contributions of many that wanted the nursing program to thrive, the University now has three of these manikins.
The set is actually a representation of a family: HAL, the father, NOELLE, the mother, and NEWBORN HAL. These three manikins allow students to simulate working on real patients. This increases the safety of the learning environment, as well as confidence and productivity of students.
DeCarvalho plans to use the manikins to conduct "life-like" scenarios for students to learn what would happen in real-life situations. The first one she has planned for early in the spring semester and will consist of NOELLE getting hit by a car while pregnant, followed by a combined team of nurses and students airlifting her to a local hospital.
Because of such quick and progressive developments, Gaumond, the company that makes the manikins, wants the University's nursing program to serve as a model for how their products can be used.