Patient simulation can play an essential role in preparing health sciences CTE students for the realities of clinical practice. Josie Scott, MSN, M.Ed., RN, CHSE, Lab Simulation Skills Coordinator at the STEM Nursing Simulation Lab at Metro Technology Center in Oklahoma City, is dedicated to using simulation to ensure her students are ready for the workforce. With over a decade of experience, Josie has expanded and refined Metro Technology Center’s simulation program, providing practical nursing students – and a variety of other healthcare learners – with immersive, hands-on training.

In this interview, Josie shares insights into using simulation to foster critical thinking, the importance of stakeholder involvement from the beginning, and more.

Josie: Our simulation lab supports career and technology education here in Oklahoma City. The program I deal with the majority of the time is our practical nursing students. They’re the ones that use the simulation lab the most. But I also work with other programs such as surgical technology, radiologic technology, [and] medical assisting. We have used some [simulation] with our high school pre-nursing, which is our CNA students. I kind of run simulation learning for all of them in our district.

[We’ve] expanded from a 5-bed simulation unit to a 10 bed, and then from a 5-bed skills lab to a 10-bed skills lab. We did get the ARPA grant to expand our simulation lab, so we can expand our nursing program by utilizing the simulation as clinical. We are looking more and more into applying for grants to try to get simulation equipment.

Josie is currently using a range of simulation training solutions in her program, including:

• Nursing Anne Simulator
• SimMan Essential
• Nursing Kelly
• Nursing Anne

Josie: The biggest impact is building their critical thinking. You can actually see it. You can compare their first simulation to their last and see that improvement. They come in not sure what to expect, but by the end, [they say,] "I knew more than I thought. But I didn’t realize all this stuff went together."

It's taking what they’ve learned, and then pulling it all together. [They say,] "I love this. I want to do more of this."

After doing just one simulation, you see that. That’s where we push to do more and more simulations each year.

Josie: What are you utilizing it for, and what is the purpose? What is your end result? In 5 to 10 years, you need to have that planned out [so that] what you buy today doesn’t become obsolete in 3 years.

You want to make sure that whatever you’re getting is supported and can build...[and that] it’s not an item that [needs updates] in a year. Because we are a career tech, more of a public K-12 type of school, we don’t want to charge students enormous amounts like colleges. And grants are harder to get it seems than for colleges. So, I have to watch things that have recurrent yearly charges.

Josie: I am a one-man band. That's part of the struggle, to a certain extent, just trying to help spread awareness about the importance of simulation can be a challenge.

There's so much that goes into it. When we run simulations, it can’t be just me. There needs to be somebody else with me. I’m running them really on the bare minimum that we can run them on.

That's the biggest [roadblock,] and probably a little bit of the funding. Because there could be other things that we do – maybe utilizing more of the virtual or being able to run multiple sims. I’ve got a 10-bed unit, so we should be able to run 3 or 4 different simulations at the same time – but without the faculty being trained in simulation, or bringing other people trained in simulation in to help, you are tying the hands that can help you expand; you can only do so much with the people you have.

I've been doing this for over 12 years. It can be challenging for leadership who have limited healthcare knowledge to understand the true impact of our work. Our program’s new direct supervisors just started in July with us, so they haven't even seen a simulation in action yet. I’m hoping that once they see it and they can visualize it, we'll be able to get more help.

Josie: I do the DASH tool [for evaluation] after every simulation. I usually get good feedback. I've had a couple of questions on what would make it better, that kind of thing. Most of them don't like my paperwork because I make them do a lot of pre-planning for the simulation. But after a simulation, they start realizing the importance of it because it's helping them build their nursing brain.

Josie: Calendar. If I know my next simulation is in 3 weeks, I plan when I need to have the electronic medical record ready for the students. Items that need to be put together and ready for the simulation, such as patient armbands, simulator programming, loading patients and medications in med carts, are just some things needed for a simulation set up. I have that game plan – so that way it’s not all of a sudden.

It's being prepared, being proactive, making sure I’m looking a week to 2 weeks ahead of time to see what I need.

Josie: Get faculty involved at the very beginning. Make sure that administration is there at the table with you, so they see how much it would take to build this. You can build the best simulation area – but if you don't have the support and the people, the faculty working with you, then what's the point? Because [then] you can’t utilize what you've got.