This article appeared in the November 23, 2007 edition of the Brooklyn Courier:
The New York City College of Technology (City Tech) nursing students crowd around the woman giving birth, responding to her cries of pain or difficulties breathing in ways they have been taught to do. There’s just one twist — the woman and her soon-to-be-born child are not real.
Welcome to City Tech’s new birthing lab, where nursing students attend class in a “hospital room” equipped with every item present in an actual birthing facility: a simulator mother and infant (life-sized mannequins) who do all the things real-life mothers and babies do.
And “real-life” is hardly an exaggeration. The mom simulator (named Noell) lets students know if they’re handling her too roughly by moaning and groaning. If she is experiencing digestive failure during the birthing process because of a mistake made in the feeding procedure, abdominal sounds will alert students to correct the feeding technique. In the same way, Noell’s labored breathing enables students to detect an obstructed airway creating oxygen deprivation.
“Nowhere is the high-tech revolution more intimately connected to human well-being than in the field of healthcare,” says Professor Rosalyn Forbes, the department’s technical support specialist. “Our new birthing lab, situated right next door to our academic classrooms, actually enables our students to deliver a baby that mimics all the movements and sounds of a real infant. Who could have imagined this just a few years ago?”
The technology enables students to experience the birthing process in all its complexities. The first birth they witness is “normal.” This provides a baseline. Subsequent births are “abnormal” — the baby is in the wrong position, the placenta emerges first, the umbilical cord is around the baby’s neck. When students remove Noell’s belly plate, all of these problems become visible and students are shown how to correct them. Throughout the process, the heartbeat and blood pressure of the mom and baby are continually monitored, just as they are in a real birth.
“When students come into a hospital setting without having this kind of hands-on lab experience first, their behavior is more passive or, as we say, ‘other-directed,’” says Professor Lynda M. Konecny. “After studying and working in the birthing lab, they gain the skills to become more ‘self-directed,’ and are, thus, a boon to others on the healthcare team.”
At a student meeting, similar thoughts were expressed. “We learn how to assist in what would be an abnormal delivery and can see what happens to the baby inside the womb. For example, we can actually see into Noell’s abdominal cavity and observe the abnormal turning of the baby,” says Trina Cosme, a second-year student. Another student, Cekeina Bartell, declares, “I feel confident that when I get to be part of a team in a hospital setting, I’ll be well prepared. That’s a wonderful feeling.”
According to Professor Kathryn Richardson, chair of City Tech’s nursing department, “We are the only college in The City University of New York (CUNY) system that has this kind of fully equipped laboratory and that provides this kind of training to both Associate’s and Bachelor’s degree nursing students.”
Technological advances are in evidence not only in the City Tech birthing lab itself, but also in the teaching tools used. Professor Konecny, for instance, uses an advanced online program called Horizon Wimba to teach a class of 27 students online once a week, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
“With this technology, I can take my students during their online lecture class anywhere in the world; from their homes, they can learn about pregnancy-related heart problems and then ‘travel’ to Africa, where they find out about improved birthing practices in Nigeria designed to alleviate this problem. If they miss anything during the class, they can go back into the archive of the lecture to retrieve the information.”
According to Konecny, this online technology ensures students’ retention, recall and application. In addition, she says, “It has resulted in an improvement in their test scores.”
All of this technologically advanced equipment in the hospital room classroom, including the mother and infant simulators, stethoscopes, bassinets, birth stretcher/beds and wall panels for the intensive care area, was provided by a Perkins grant to the City Tech nursing department.
“The new lab is a great leap into 21st century technology,” says Brian Adzadi, a student from Ghana. “Here at City Tech, new technologies are an essential part of all our learning experiences. We learn to understand and use the tools of tomorrow — the methods and skills that will prepare us to work effectively in our chosen fields. I think all of us feel most fortunate to have this opportunity.”