Fall 2005 -- Vol. 58, No. 4

The mother’s heart rate increases dramatically. The unborn baby’s decreases just as sharply. The nurse doesn’t know why — not yet — but she knows a perfectly normal labor has taken a dramatic turn.

With the doctor tending to another emergency for the next few minutes, the fate of a woman and her baby lies in the hands of the nurse.

She feels her own pulse quicken as she presses a button to signal that a patient is in distress. Her eyes scan monitors that befuddle a father-to-be standing in the room. She finds a problem: too much Pitocin. An IV-administered solution that’s supposed to encourage contractions has been infused too rapidly, and the Pitocin overload is wreaking havoc on the patient and the fetus.

If the wrong decisions are made, the mother and baby could be harmed.

This very patient died just yesterday; in fact, she may die again later this afternoon.

That’s the value of this patient simulator. Known to Clemson’s School of Nursing students as Noel, she can give birth several times a day if needed. She can die when they make mistakes. She can bounce back when they do well.

That’s life and death in the nursing profession, according to Elaine Payne, coordinator of Clemson’s Clinical Learning Center, home to three patient simulators, including Noel and her infant.

“Students can practice here, and no one is going to get hurt,” she says. “If they don’t choose the best action, we can make the patient deteriorate. We can also make the patient improve if they do the correct thing.”

The simulators make the noises — pleasant and unpleasant — that nurses expect from real patients. They have vital signs and a voice, develop fevers and respond to touch. The simulators and the Clinical Learning Center are part of the $3 million Clinical Learning and Research Center (CLRC), dedicated in September and taking up the entire second floor of Edwards Hall.

Nursing and architecture faculty and students worked together for three years to design the space needs, using current and future technology, for clinical practice, teaching and learning. The result is a state-of-the-art learning environment designed by Pazdan-Smith Group Architects of Greenville. The objectives included design of an on-campus research site for architecture students to study health-care sites and their impact on patient health. Clemson has one of only two master’s programs in health and architecture in the country.

A long corridor runs through the middle of the CLRC, separating the Clinical Learning Center on one side from the Learning Resource Center on the other. The Clinical Learning Center sports three bays that are set up like hospital rooms. Each bay has four complete Hill-Rom hospital beds, one of which includes a patient simulator. The rooms include basins, fully supplied cabinets and those rolling bed trays that only nurses ever seem to master. The Clinical Learning Center also has meeting space and a smart classroom. The facility includes video monitors that allow students to review their own performance.

The other side of the hallway, the Learning Resource Center, includes a computer lab, open meeting space for small classes, soundproof rooms for small groups, media resources and the office of Michelle Marchesse, director of the CLRC.

The mix of hands-on practice, professional interaction and digital resources gives students a rich learning experience, according to Marchesse.

“The CLRC will help us produce a group of highly diversified, qualified and knowledgeable health-care professionals,” says Marchesse. “Our students will be ready to enter the work force with confidence. They will be prepared to shape and influence the evolving trends in the health-care community.”

For more on Clemson’s School of Nursing in the College of Health, Education and Human Development, visit the Web at www.hehd.clemson.edu/nursing.

Special thanks to Ed ’47 and Birdie Proctor and Bettye Cecil for their major support in making
the Clinical Learning and Research Center possible and to Don Shirley for Hill-Rom’s
generous donation of health-care provider furniture.