How the Use of Practi-Products and Medical Simulation Have Enhanced My Education
By Cristina Medel
Practice Builds Confidence and Safety
As a nursing major with no background in any medical field the use of the practice-products gave me the closest feeling to a real life medical experience. As the weeks went by and I held in my hands what before I had just seen or read in a textbook definitely put nursing school in a realistic perspective. I had the opportunity to use products truly similar to which real nurses use in everyday life. It built my experience, confidence, and skills as a nursing student in training. The use of the injecting pad, the syringes, and the vials for skill-check offs gave it a real feeling during the pass or fail check-off, required to be able to give injections at the hospitals. The benefit of having accessibility to the Wallcur products allowed me to be more efficient while at the hospitals because I would seek opportunities to practice my skills because I felt comfortable from constantly practicing.
As part of our clinical portion, the class participated in a medication administration simulation where one student was a registered nurse, another was a family member, and the third the patient. We practiced using the rights of medication administration as well as understanding the physician’s orders for the medications scheduled to be given. Again, having the Wallcur products available for our pretend scenarios made it completely real to me and I enjoyed practicing being a real nurse with my peers. Coming into nursing with no background experience and having at reach these practice-products allowed me to gain experience to strengthen my confidence while giving an injection to patients. I felt that practicing injections countless times with real-like medical equipment improved my performance and technique. I learned how to give injections from having these hands-on experiences. Plus, no longer did a medication room seem like a foreign world because now I had been exposed to such products.
Most importantly I feel that with the use of Wallcur practice-products, safety was always a priority regardless if they were pretend products used during class. I cannot stress enough the anxiety and eagerness I felt to start practicing injections and when that day came and those pads were set up for me to practice, my nursing ego grew. I went home and shared with my loved ones that I had given a shot and of course they did not see the amazement because it was not on a real person however it was a step closer in that direction. I learned how to correctly and safely inject a patient through the use of the products Wallcur provides for clinical time. The experiences learned from practicing made a real first time injection seem like another practice-run, however; this time I had a patient’s voice comment saying “Wow, you have a light hand, I was worried because you were a student” and I kindly smiled and replied “I have done this many times.” It was not necessarily on a human’s body but Wallcur’s practice-products made it feel very real-like.