High-Tech Mannequins Provide Hands-On Practice

Clinical Nurse Assisting (CNA) students from the Academy at Milliken Technical Center in Oakdale recently visited a sophisticated nursing simulation lab to learn and practice industry skills such as wound care, patient assessment, and managing medical equipment. Students did so with high-fidelity, life-size mannequins while under the guidance of other students and instructors in the Eastern Suffolk BOCES Licensed Practical Nursing (LPN) Program. The lab and LPN Program are based in the Eastern Suffolk BOCES Adult Education Center in Brentwood. The CNA students are part of the Eastern Long Island Academy of Applied Technology, the Career and Technical Education Program at Eastern Suffolk BOCES (ESBOCES). Collaboration across the numerous ESBOCES programs provides students with in-depth, real-life perspectives and opportunities to utilize valuable hands-on applications.

Working together, students used four mannequins to learn how to care for a burn patient, remove a urinary drainage bag, conduct proper patient assessment, and change the dressing on a patient after a tracheotomy. This included taking a culture, venting the area with a suction tube, and donning isolation protection gear to prevent microorganism contamination. Said Gina Marie Martin, Nurse Assisting teacher, “The goal here is to see if my students want to continue their education by applying for the LPN program. Our sim lab is the closest they will get to doing the level of work LPNs do. Therefore, there is no better place for them to make that determination than here.”