Blog 2:
Are people you came in contact with through this experience having some needs met through the community activities?
My service learning site is the New Nurse Graduate Residency Program at St. Mary Corwin Hospital. This grant-funded program supports new nurse graduates who are employed at both St. Mary Corwin Hospital, and their sister facility, St. Thomas More Hospital, as they transition into the professional nursing role. My service to the New Nurse Graduate Residency Program is to offer the participants experiences with high fidelity simulation.
The participants of the New Nurse Residency program have had the opportunity to practice patient care in a safe learning environment. Specific patient situations and/or health issues have been identified by the coordinator for the residency program and the Unit Managers. Simulation scenarios were then developed and implemented to address these situations and health issues, thus providing the new graduate nurse an opportunity to practice patient care in difficult situations. Each simulation experience is followed by a structured debriefing session which includes reflection and suggestions for improved care.
Are community activities like these necessary and/or sufficient to fulfill these community and individual needs? Do you see other means to do so?
The use of simulation in nursing education for students, as well as new graduate nurses, is a fairly new teaching/learning strategy. According to Lindsay (2010), the use of simulation technology allows for the creation of a patient scenario. A patient care situation can be identified as potentially troublesome, and a scenario can be developed that will provide opportunities for guided learning for inexperienced nurses. Simulation experiences can focus on technical skills, symptom management, communication, compassion, cultural competence, and interdisciplinary collaboration. The value of simulation experiences in nursing has been studied extensively in the last few years, and research strongly supports the use of this learning methodology (Sperlazza and Cangelosi (2010).
Simulation activities, although not a requisite for development of expert nurse competencies, does provide the opportunities to nurture the new nurse graduates, with the overall goal of improved patient care and health outcomes.
What was the best/worst/most challenging thing that happened this semester?
The greatest challenge with this service learning project is scheduling of the simulation experiences. St. Mary Corwin Hospital does not have a simulation laboratory within their facility, so therefore the new nurse graduates come to the Colorado State University-Pueblo (CSU-Pueblo) nursing simulation lab. They also do not have any personnel trained to develop or implement simulation scenarios, thus my expertise in this specialty is the reason for our partnership. Offering simulation experiences to the New Graduate Nurse Residency participants is based on availability of myself and the lab. We must work around the schedule of the Undergraduate and Graduate students of CSU-Pueblo. There have been two requests for simulation days in the past two months that I was unable to accommodate.
What are your future service learning plans?
To date, I have developed and implemented specific high fidelity simulated case scenarios for 12 new nurses who are participating in the New Nurse Graduate Residency Program. I have not provided any simulation experiences for the new graduates since my last blog. The New Nurse Graduate Residency Program Coordinator schedules simulation experiences for the participants quarterly. We have arranged for another simulation opportunity the end of May, 2011. I plan to continue the partnership with St. Mary Corwin Hospital New Nurse Graduate Residency Program.
References:
Lindsay, J. (2010). Introducing nursing students to pediatric end-of-life issues using simulation. Dimensions of Critical Care Nursing, 29(4), 175-178.
Sperlazza, E., & Cangelosi, P. (2009). The power of pretend: Using simulation to teach end-of-life care. Nurse Educator, 34(6), 276-280.
