The new building is improving students’ training experiences. Nurses and doctors training together will make a real difference
Completing the final year of her Adult Nursing degree, Sharon Land from East Yorkshire was one of the first students to benefit from the fantastic new facilities in the Allam Medical Building. She’s now ready to hit the ground running as a Foundation Practice Nurse, training to be a GP Practice Nurse in Hull.
Times have changed in hospitals and the technology has evolved. The facilities we now have in the new building are outstanding for giving you that real-life feeling. And the confidence that gives you is vital when you are going out on your first placement.
The building was opened during my final year and we mainly used the clinical skills area on the fourth floor. Facilities like the simulated ward area offer students the opportunity to hear an emergency buzzer and rehearse various situations in a safe environment. Practising different scenarios like this has given me confidence, knowledge and skills that I can transfer out into real-life practice.
There’s a room specifically for learning the hand-washing techniques which can help prevent infection. There are also various rooms that can be used to demonstrate manual handling, using hoists and moving patients in bed safely. The Community Room, which is set up to simulate a home visit, is perfect if you’re going to be working out in the community. It gives that feel for what it’s really like to work in somebody’s home. For instance, if you were on the floor doing a leg dressing you may have something like a coffee table beside you to move out of the way.
The ‘patient’ mannequins that we used were simulated via an iPad and this was really good for teaching how the condition of a patient can deteriorate. The tutor was in control of the mannequin, so you could be happily nursing your ‘patient’ and all of a sudden the heart rate would drop or go higher and you would have to react as you would on a ward. The new building is certainly going to improve present and future students’ training experiences and I can see how nurses and doctors training alongside each other in the future will make a real difference. They will have more of an understanding of each other’s job roles. Doctors will know more about what nurses are capable of and vice versa and I think that will help immensely with communication.
The new facilities really are transforming the way courses are taught. For the lecturers it feels like their personas have changed too. You get a sense that everyone is excited and wants to get going. The staff and the faculty deserve this building too.
For me, it’s really given a sense that I am ready for anything, I just want to get going.
