Felician College's Popular New Patient...

Felician College's new SimMan^TM--Universal Patient Simulator--is a hit with nursing students learning patient-care skills. The life-like mannequin allows students to practice skills like checking blood pressure and inserting IVs, catheters, stomach tubes and chest tubes. With its ability to make lung, abdominal and cardiac sounds, it is the ultimate heart and lung sound trainer. The SimMan^TM is a reproduction of an average size adult male and includes realistic weight distribution and articulation. It comes with amputated limbs and various wound patches so that students can practice treating trauma-related injuries.

"Having the state-of-the-art mannequin to practice on offers a real advantage to nurses-in-training. It allows students to practice with multiple patient cases offering various levels of real-world difficulties and complications," says Barbara Buongiorno, Coordinator of the Nursing Resource Center at Felician College. "By the time students work with patients in a hospital setting, they have a greater level of competency," she says.

Future plans at Felician College include purchasing the next generation of the SimMan^TM which comes complete with a Windows-based interactive software package allowing for situation-based training, and physical assessment and interventions for conscious and unconscious patients, patients with difficult airways, patients suffering from cardiac conditions, and patients suffering from a variety of respiratory conditions. The software is used to operate all functions of the mannequin including cardiac monitoring, pacing, waveform rate, SpO2, CO2, respiratory rate, temperature, heart, breath, bowel and vocal sounds. It also offers user programmable and definable scenarios and trends based on individual protocol as well as advanced life support training with 
user-definable scenarios and CPR recognition. The new SimMan^TM is capable of creating, printing and saving files for each student or group. 

"This advanced model would offer many opportunities for students to practice and become proficient in saving a patient's life," says Buongiorno.

The Division of Health Sciences at Felician College enrolls 350 students studying to become health care professionals. Degree programs within the Nursing Division include the Associate in Applied Science in Nursing, the Bachelor of Science in Nursing, and the Master of Science in Nursing. Degree programs within the Division of Allied Health Professions include the Associate in Applied Science in Medical Laboratory Technology and the following programs offered jointly with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-School of Health Related Professions (UMDNJ-SHRP)-the Bachelor of Science in Allied Health Technologies, the Bachelor of Science in Clinical Laboratory Sciences, the Associate in Applied Science in Psychosocial Rehabilitation and Treatment, and the Doctorate in Physical Therapy.

For more information about the SimMan^TM or health science programs at Felician College, please call Barbara Buongiorno at 201-559-6035.