Hands-On Skills and Nursing Simulation Labs
A vital part of your nursing education, our hands-on skills and nursing simulation labs connect what you’re learning in your online nursing theory courses with the real-world patient care scenarios you will experience during clinical rotations.
While you can complete the nursing theory coursework component of the Averett ABSN program online from anywhere, you will attend regularly scheduled labs at our Norfolk ABSN learning center. We designed this facility to be a safe environment for you to practice and refine your clinical skills alongside your peers, under the guidance of experienced faculty.
In addition to individualized attention from instructors, you’ll also have access to state-of-the-art equipment, including realistic medical manikins, on which to develop foundational nursing skills and hone your clinical judgement.
Skills Labs
The best way to master nursing skills is by doing, which is exactly why the lab portion of our ABSN curriculum is so important to your nursing education. In a realistic and safe mock clinical environment, you’ll attend nursing skills labs multiple times each week, practicing the following fundamental nursing skills:
- Head-to-toe assessments
- Wound care
- Catheter and IV insertion
- Nasogastric insertion
Additionally, labs are available outside of course-related use for you to gain confidence in your skills.
Nursing Simulation Labs
Once you have enough nursing skills practice under your belt, you’ll shift more of your focus to applying them in mock patient-care scenarios during nursing simulation labs. This portion of your nursing education comes about as close to a real-world clinical scenario as you can get — the main difference, of course, is that you’ll be practicing realistic patient care skills on computerized medical manikins instead of on real patients.
Participating in nursing simulation labs also gives you the chance to hone problem-solving, collaboration and critical-thinking skills in context, without the fear of harming a real patient, so it’s perfectly OK to make mistakes.
Each simulation focuses on specific learning objectives that become more complex as you progress through the program and require you to work alongside a group of your peers to “treat” one of our manikins. These high-tech patient stand-ins may not be real, but they were made to simulate a variety of realistic conditions ranging from allergic reactions to bleeding, which our instructors can manipulate from a control booth. It’s up to you and your peers to think on your feet and determine the best course of action.
After each simulation, you’ll participate in a debriefing session with your instructor and classmates to discuss the experience. These sessions are important because they help you learn from your mistakes and get constructive, honest feedback from instructors in a judgment-free setting.
For More Information
Contact us to learn more about the skills and nursing simulation lab component of our ABSN curriculum.