Melissa Gonzales, M.S.N., B.S.N., R.N., director of the School of Nursing’s Skills Lab, oversees Cecilia Gonzales, Ph.D., professor of biology at Palo Alto College.
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San Antonio (Feb. 5, 2007) – ‘Noelle’ is a mannequin equipped with all the sights and sounds of delivering a baby. She has a cervix that dilates. Inside her womb, students can listen to fetal heart tones, both normal and abnormal. Her baby can be positioned for a breach delivery.

The School of Nursing at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is a high-tech place these days with an array of simulators, such as Noelle, that enable students to practice how they will respond to medical situations long before they encounter them for real.

“These mannequins are so realistic that when the students practice, it is like they are working with real patients,” said Norma Martinez Rogers, Ph.D., R.N., associate professor in the department of family nursing care.

The simulators include Vital Sim Baby, an infant model with a heartbeat, respiratory sounds, coughing, hiccups and cries. Other mannequins include an adult respiratory distress simulator that delivers sounds including fluid on the lungs.

As students progress semester by semester through the School of Nursing’s programs, they learn to identify more sounds, both normal and abnormal, said Melissa K. Gonzalez, M.S.N., R.N., director of the school’s Clinical Skills Labs. The simulation facility includes a completely equipped hospital room where students, under the watchful eyes of an instructor, are expected to do everything to save a distressed patient. The facility also has four equipped patient exam rooms.

Students put into practice the concepts they have mastered in the classroom. “You have to know why you are doing what you are doing,” Dr. Rogers said. “How do you know if what you are doing is effective if you don’t know the rationale behind it?”

Occasionally, a mock patient is allowed to die. Students are encouraged to learn to make decisions quickly and overcome demoralized feelings. “We call it ‘practicing to a fault,’” Gonzalez said.
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The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is the leading research institution in South Texas and one of the major health sciences universities in the world. With an operating budget of $536 million, the Health Science Center is the chief catalyst for the $14.3 billion biosciences and health care industry, the leading sector in San Antonio’s economy. The Health Science Center has had an estimated $35 billion impact on the region since inception and has expanded to six campuses in San Antonio, Laredo, Harlingen and Edinburg. More than 22,000 graduates (physicians, dentists, nurses, scientists and allied health professionals) serve in their fields, including many in Texas. Health Science Center faculty are international leaders in cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, aging, stroke prevention, kidney disease, orthopaedics, research imaging, transplant surgery, psychiatry and clinical neurosciences, pain management, genetics, nursing, allied health, dentistry and many other fields. For more information, click on www.uthscsa.edu.