School of Nursing mass casualty simulation to give students experience across multiple disciplines
Lee University’s School of Nursing held a mass casualty simulation for the third semester, this time including many other departments.
Over 75 students are planned to participate, 11 of which are nursing students. The scenario for the simulation is that there was a train carrying passengers that derailed causing a chemical explosion in one of the carts carrying chlorine. A nearby sports stadium saw the commotion and frantically began running away, causing the bleachers to collapse and creating even more injuries. A surge of 35 to 40 people are then rushed to the 11 awaiting nurses to be treated.
Assistant professor of nursing Dr. Brenda Jones said she could not emphasize the importance of the simulations experience enough amongst the students.
“It is necessary to expose students to these kinds of things in a controlled simulated environment,” Jones said. “It is important for the community to see how much our students at Lee are being trained for when things like this tragedy happen in real life.”
In order to keep a sense of realism, according to Jones, a death occurred in the simulation in order to prepare students for the way that could affect them in their careers.
“One death amongst the patients [will train] the nursing students to accept a loss and stay calm when it happens. The SOR students will help the family of that patient through the knowledge of the loss,” Jones said.
Along with the nursing students taking action to help both real life and mannequin patients, Dr. William Effler prepared a group of School of Religion students to help the families and loved ones of the patients handle their worries after this tragedy. He is also bringing Erlanger chaplain Jeremy Lambert to guide them in their participation.
Dr. Christine Williams led the Communication Department’s theatre students as they act like frantic family members and loved ones. Dr. Taz Kicklighter, Dr. Rachel Lawler and Dr. DeWayne Knight headed the participating athletic department, who assisted the nursing students with things like sprains and other minor injuries.
The dean of the School of Nursing Dr. Sara Campbell said that the departments at Lee are learning to deal with disasters together in order to prepare for the chance that one should happen during their lives.
“The School of Nursing continues to build on a strong curricular foundation of disaster response,” Campbell said. “This simulation provides a unique and specialized inter-professional experience for our students.
According to Campbell, the students are the main focus. Senior nursing major Brooke Groff said she bolstered her training through the simulation.
“This helps a lot because I won’t just walk into a real life situation without having learned in a real-time simulation where no one was truly in danger,” Groff said.
On top of the participation in the many departments at Lee, campus security, homeland security and emergency management agencies were all involved as well. This semester focused heavily on broadening the interprofessional collaboration in order to better prepare students.
The preparation for this particular simulation was outlined originally in Jones’ course about community health and disaster nursing. The nursing students also met with Dr. David Quagliana, who taught them how to take care of themselves emotionally and physically during events such as these.
This simulation is the first thing they have to see how they react and perform with a surge of patients. As the nursing is a highly stressful situation, according to Jones, this evaluation for the nursing students is different than being graded as it does not pass or fail the students like the nursing checkoffs could.
Groff said the disaster triage system the nursing students will help the students know who needs to be helped the most.
“We use clinical judgment to tag people with colors based on their likelihood of survival. It is different than the system used by the ER,” Groff said. “Black means we must let them die, red means immediate attention is needed (15 minutes is around their expected time to survive), yellow means they can’t help themselves but they’re not emergent, green means they can help themselves and should be taken somewhere else for less immediate treatment.”
Gross said she went into the simulation with the hopes to grow in her future career.
“I hope to gain confidence out of being alone in this without someone looking over my shoulder telling me what to do for the first time. I really want to know what my reaction will be after it is all over. At the time, it is not as hard as when it is over. During the fast paced, stressful simulation you have to make instantaneous decisions, but after is when you have to think about if those were the right ones,” Groff said. “In life, if you make a mistake, you hurt somebody.”
Afterwards, there will be an hour and a half designated for the students to have a time of debriefing. This is important for the students to talk through their emotions after dealing with everything during the simulation.
For more information about mass casualty simulations, contact Dr. Brenda Jones at brendajones@leeuniversity.edu.
