CLEAR WATER (WQOW) – Health Simulation Week Started on Monday, and CVTC health students now have the opportunity to enter a virtual reality simulator to learn how to change real life in their field.
“Virtual reality is a truly cutting-edge technology. There are only a handful of programs that actually use it across the country,” said Kim Ernstmeyer, director of the CVTC for the Open Resources for Nursing project.
Students put on their headphones and enter the emergency room, hospital, or patient clinic and work with different patients and settings.
“It’s definitely exciting to get this new virtual reality system and have a different perspective on how to work with patients. In fact, I was doing a simulation with another of my classmates, so we bounced ideas about how the heart actually “We were able to stick our heads in and look through the valves and everything, grab and touch the heart, turn around and look at everything. It was very, very good,” said Kelsey Lato, a nursing student. of the CVTC.
CVTC began using healthcare simulations in 2001, making it one of the first schools to do so in Wisconsin and across the country.
“Allow [students] to live the situation, understand what is important to pay attention to, especially because the patient’s condition is deteriorating, recognize that, know who to contact, know how to properly communicate with the doctor or other advanced medical provider and provide care ‘high quality to patients from the moment they graduate,’ Ernstmeyer said.
“The other thing about the simulation is that you’re allowed to go in and make mistakes, which in the real world isn’t right. When you can go out and make mistakes, and then learn from those mistakes, so you don’t.” Don’t put them into real practice, it’s a life change for students and for our patients, ”said Theresa Meinen, coordinator of the CVTC Simulation Center.
The virtual reality simulator was paid for by a $ 2.5 million grant from the Department of Education. The grant will also cover the creation of 25 new virtual reality scenarios, five open education textbooks and the creation of virtual reality centers in schools across the state.