Nursing
Portland Magazine
May 14, 2020
In mid-March, just as students were returning from spring break, the global pandemic brought all of our best-laid plans to a screeching halt. At UP students scrambled to relocate, while faculty scrambled to move classes online.
Going online presented some unique challenges for the School of Nursing. About 50 senior nursing students were forced to leave their off-campus clinical rotations before they had a chance to earn all of the hours required to receive their degrees. Moving classroom instruction online is one thing, but what about the experience of shadowing other nurses on the job? That can’t be replicated online, can it? Turns out UP’s School of Nursing found a way.
“We wanted to take the opportunity to provide something that was really relevant, that matched current circumstances, and [would] push the students even more,” says Michelle Collazo, manager of content at UP’s School of Nursing Simulated Health Center.
The team quickly arrived at telehealth medicine visits, which were gaining popularity even before the crisis made in-person doctor visits problematic. By replicating the experience of assessing a patient’s needs over a video call, the students would earn the hours they needed while gaining up-to-the-minute skills that will be in high demand when they graduate.
“It turned into this cool opportunity to offer the students a different kind of simulation,” says Stephanie Meyer, operations manager for the Simulated Health Center.
Just like the in-person hospital room simulations the students participate in on campus, the telehealth simulations start with scripts—very detailed scripts—that cover a variety of situations a nurse might encounter today, from someone experiencing COVID-19 symptoms who also struggles with anxiety, to someone needing mental health assistance and a permanent place to live.
Instead of computer-generated avatars, mannequins, or even freelance contractors, the School of Nursing employs six actors on staff to portray a wide variety of standardized patients. Although the actors are free to improvise, “we run actual rehearsals,” says Collazo. “Things come up, things to clarify, and we work really hard at that. Doing it online was no exception.”
The students were paired up to triage each patient actor during the video calls, one asking detailed questions, gently pushing to get as much clarity as possible, the other recording the answers that they’d use to create an assessment and care recommendation to present to a nurse practitioner. Since they were dealing with real people in real time, anything could happen on these calls, from technical difficulties to bad jokes.
“They had to really engage,” says Collazo. “Even though it’s a script, you still have to use clinical judgement for when to dig deeper. That’s what I hoped to see, and that’s what I did see.”
Some of the students found the new simulations to have added value. “Being pulled from my clinical rotation was a bummer for sure,” says senior Jessica Lemon, “but this telehealth sim was so beneficial because it’s so relevant. We’re moving this direction for primary care in the US. And this was the best simulation I’ve had in my entire career at UP.”
Fellow senior Kiana Lyons agrees. “Getting to experience what telehealth is like was one of the highlights of my simulation experience. The staff really encouraged us to use our skills and think outside the box. And I get to take these tools moving forward if I work in a clinic.”
—Danielle Centoni
University of Portland
5000 N. Willamette Blvd.,
Portland, Oregon 97203-5798
503.943.8000
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