Brooks College of Health nursing students will gain experience through simulated medical situations at the new HCA Healthcare Center for Clinical Advancement at the University of North Florida.
The facility is at the UNF MedNexus at the Florida State College of Jacksonville Deerwood Campus.
Students learn using lifelike robots that simulate medical conditions to teach and test student nurses.
There are eight simulation rooms including two for home health care settings, a birthing suite, a newborn/toddler suite and an emergency room and trauma bay. There also is an operating room.
In the birthing unit, for example, the patient “gives birth” to a “baby” robot.
The robotic patient can simulate a breech birth as well as those with a tangled umbilical cord.
Students can take the robot’s pulse, temperature and blood pressure.
The birthing experience is enhanced by the robot’s ability to speak 140 phrases that often occur during childbirth.
“The simulation center is really like a miniature hospital. It’s as close to the real thing as you can get,” said Nina Evans, division chief nursing executive with HCA Healthcare South Atlantic Division.
