If your heart starts beating erratically or you begin having trouble breathing, it’s importantly to quickly determine what’s going on.
That’s why one local hospital is using a high-tech patient to better train its nurses. Quick diagnosis and decision making can be critical in a medical emergency, but even for routine care, medical professionals need to understand how the body is supposed to work, and what signs mean there’s something wrong.
Practice helps and what better way to get that experience than a patient who shows all the signs of various ailments, but never feels any pain or suffers any long-term effects. At Mt Nittany Medical Center. T. J , the SimMan breathes, has a heart beat and blood pressure, and can even simulate a heart attack
Clinical Educator Dwain Pegues says T.J. is the perfect training tool. “It offers them the opportunity to practice a greater number of clinical events in that safe environment,” he explains.
T.J. is used to train nurses, medical students residents, and even local high school students through a special work training program.
Pegues says trainees can check T.J.’s blood pressure, his heart and bowel signs, insert an IV, and shock him, if necessary.
Mt Nittany also has a SimJunior for teaching about pediatrics and a SimBaby for CPR training.
