SIMBaby at K2
Escorted by several members of the clinical skills team and one practitioner, SIMBaby, the School of Nursing and Midwifery’s new £31,000 skills mannequin recently made the trip to the K2 Centre in Crawley. Safely delivered and assembled by skills technician Clare Gochmanski, the 'state of the art' acquisition was the centrepiece of the school's display at the Careers Clinic for Healthcare Science.
The Careers Clinic is part of an Aimhigher initiative encouraging schoolchildren to think about studying at university, especially if their parents have never experienced or considered higher education before. It was a perfect opportunity to demonstrate a range of essential nursing skills such as taking blood pressures and measuring body temperature and pulse oximetry, whilst giving an overview of foundation degrees and pre-registration nursing and midwifery courses.
"Well-weird" and "cool" were just some of the phrases used by the year 9 and 10 pupils from across Sussex as they listened to SIMBaby’s heart beat and watched her breathe. Explanations were on hand from senior lecturer in child health Jill Durrant and Deputy Sister Alison Taylor from the Royal Alexandra Hospital, Brighton. Commenting on SIMBaby, Alison said she was:
"...great for teaching nurses and doctors to manage emergency care of the child in a safe and non-threatening environment. I recently helped out with the Child Branch clinical examinations at the university and SIMBaby was also really useful there for making the situation a bit more 'real' for the students."
Alison is currently a student at the University of Brighton herself and taking a Postgraduate Certificate in Health and Social Care Education with the School of Nursing and Midwifery. The day provided an opportunity to work collaboratively with the school's lecturing staff engaging with the future nurses and midwives of tomorrow.
