Heart monitors beeping, phones ringing, elevated voices and anxiety levels through the roof: these are common sounds and feelings found in a hospital or critical care centre. But at Lethbridge Polytechnic, it’s also the status quo for many students learning to become health-care professionals.
The polytechnic’s Centre for Health and Wellness houses the Simulation Hub – comprised of 10 high-tech, simulation-based learning spaces that bridge the gap between classroom learning and clinical placements. These areas simulate a variety of health-care treatment facilities, from seniors’ and acute care centres to emergency rooms, enabling student learning through safe, hands-on and immersive situations.
When used in conjunction with clinical rotations and traditional classroom settings, these simulations help expand students’ learning in preparation for the complex and high-stress situations they can expect to encounter in their fields.
Alessandra Chan, Student Crew member at the Simulation Hub and second-year Practical Nurse student, refers to the Sim Hub as her “home at the polytechnic.”
“It has been one of the greatest experiences of my student life; we can make mistakes in a safe space and learn so much more as opposed to a textbook or practical exams,” she says. “Nothing will prepare you for real life [in health care], but we can try.”
A team of passionate health-care professionals oversee the Simulation Hub, many of whom jumped at the opportunity to help teach the next generation of health-care workers. Fred Manaloto and Jerri Schweighardt, both Lethbridge Polytechnic alumni, are two of them.
“My dream job was to work in multimedia, but I found my passion in taking care of people,” says Manaloto. After graduating from the polytechnic’s Practical Nurse program in 2020, Manaloto was asked to volunteer with the Sim Hub, but he declined the offer because of a work opportunity in the health-care industry. “Months later, they asked me to apply for a simulation specialist position and four years later, here I am,” he says.
Manaloto, who continues to work in long-term care in addition to his responsibilities on campus, says the Simulation Hub is the perfect blend of passion and work despite his initial calling to become a radio DJ.
“I have a sense of importance, and I really enjoy making a difference in students’ lives,” he says.
Schweighardt’s journey to the Sim Hub was more direct than Manaloto’s.
“In 2019, when I was in my Bachelor of Nursing program through the polytechnic and the University of Lethbridge, an instructor asked me to become a simulation volunteer,” she says. “Just weeks later, I was playing a gunshot victim being carried up a narrow flight of stairs strapped to a wooden board. As a former theatre kid, I was hooked!”
Schweighardt, who still works as a registered nurse at Chinook Regional Hospital in Lethbridge, pairs her online and in-person learning experiences with her lived experiences to teach unique perspectives to students.
“Simulations cover birth-to-death care and everything in between,” she says. “It can be intense, and we see students sometimes freeze up when they experience particularly triggering simulations and do not even realize it. The Sim Hub is where we want to find those reactions and work to address them as a team rather than on the job.”
Simulation Hub volunteers are a huge part of the group’s success, with 175 students and 50 community members dedicating their time to improving health-care education. Of these 50 community members, 32 are children, giving students access to vital pediatric simulations that may not occur during clinical placements but are an invaluable part of the learning process.
The lab also benefits from the efforts of persons with lived experiences, engaged citizens, health-care professionals and members of the Blackfoot community who contribute to culturally tailored scenarios. In addition to these invaluable human elements, the lab utilizes state-of-the-art manikins. Manikins are specifically created artificial patients that mimic human anatomy and physiology and are often controlled remotely by instructors to challenge students on the fly with changing conditions.
“While sometimes the manikins feel robotic compared to actors, they are as realistic as possible, and I believe we have the perfect blend of the two,” says Manaloto. “That’s a total game changer.”
And these simulations aren’t confined to classrooms. They also include live scenes, sometimes at large scale, where volunteer patients act out intense scenarios that fully immerse students to test their mental, physical and emotional skills.
Last August, a mass casualty simulation occurred on campus that saw students in several health care programs come together in a tense situation involving volunteer actors. They helped create an ultra-realistic and intense atmosphere with low stakes but high-learning opportunities.
Chan recalls another particularly impactful experience that reinforced, for her, the value of hands-on learning in a controlled environment.
“One simulation had us performing a welfare check on someone in a mock motel room,” she says. “When I entered the room, I moved to check on our volunteer patient who then lashed out, to my surprise. Making that crucial safe positioning mistake in a simulation taught me to be better aware of my surroundings. That knowledge from a simulation could save my life in the future.”
“I love that our [simulations] go all out,” Schweighardt adds. “We have the best volunteer actors in the business who effectively convey medical issues that get student buy-in so they can best learn from the scenario.”
These live simulations were highlighted as a strength by the Society for Simulations in Healthcare (SSH). The organization recently accredited the Simulation Hub, making it one of four post-secondary spaces in Canada to receive such an accolade. Alongside live simulations, SSH recognized the Sim Hub’s instructors for their dedication to students and programs, and the robust interconnections with other academic centres at the polytechnic.
Established in 2004 by professionals using simulation for education, testing and research in health care, SSH serves a global community of practice seeking to improve performance and reduce errors in patient care by using simulations in health-care training. To date, SSH has accredited 180 teaching and/or education simulation facilities globally.
The application for accreditation was no small feat. A team of eight assembled the 1,500-page requisition over two years. The application included checklists, emergency procedures, teaching and learning philosophies, workplace safety and psychological health documents, maps of every room in the Sim Hub, item lists and a curriculum vitae for every instructor.
In the end, the document, while submitted electronically, would have weighed almost seven kilograms. It described every single facet and detail about the Simulation Hub – evidence of the sheer dedication and passion the team had in making it the best it could be.
Accreditation is a significant step for the polytechnic, as it sets it apart from other post-secondary institutions vying to train tomorrow’s health-care professionals.
“We make scenarios that people won’t see or deal with daily but will be ready for,” says Schweighardt. “Here, students can engage without fear and learn something that will help them in the future.”
Manaloto sums up the value of the Sim Hub by saying, “Without simulations, most of our students would want to change careers [due to] feeling unprepared. We are helping steer them toward success.”
