The department of nursing at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) has advanced simulated training for nursing students by opening an immersive interactive room.
The immersive interactive room on the second floor of the nursing building will allow students to engage in virtual medical training scenarios.
NCCU’s nursing program is the first at a university in North Carolina to adopt this technology.
Among those are training scenarios on therapeutic communication, mental health, post operative complications and rural community health simulation.
“We have access to more than 2,000 scenarios,” said Tina Scott, DNP, director of experiential learning.
Ceiling projectors project images onto three walls of the room. Nursing students in the immersive interactive room can also experience touch and even smell.
Say, for example, there is a scenario about a 14-car pile-up complete with police, paramedics, injured people on the ground and vehicles on fire.
“There are scent diffusers in there and fans on the ceiling that will pipe in smoke, burning rubber and smells from the environment,” said Scott.
In another scenario, “(students) are immersed in a virtual hospital,” Scott said. “They can see a virtual patient in a bed. It’s a replica of a hospital setting. It has monitors, a sink. They can also see other nurses. They can see the patient’s chart and look up other assessments.”
If that’s not real enough, nursing students can also talk with the virtual patients in real time.
When each scenario is over, instructors review the student’s action.
In addition, the nursing department has obtained 360-degree cameras so they can create their own scenarios.
“We can be really specific to the community,” Scott said.
In summer 2024, the department introduced virtual reality equipment to its students.
Students wear an oculus (headgear covering the eyes) and handheld controls. The gear allows them to view and interact with simulated medical training scenarios, up to and including having real time conversations.
“We will produce nurses in quality and quantity that are needed in North Carolina and the United States,” said Mohammad Ahmed, Ph.D., dean of the College of Health and Sciences. “This is part of our expansion.”