TAMPA BAY, Fla. – January 11, 2010 – Galen School of Nursing today announced it has opened a new 36,000-square-foot campus that nearly doubles the size of the school’s facilities and will soon include a state-of-the-art, high fidelity clinical simulation laboratory. A major goal in this expansion is to help address the growing shortage of nurses in Florida, a shortage that many studies suggest could reach crippling levels by 2020.
“This expansion will provide numerous additional resources for our students and help ensure we keep abreast of the rapidly changing technology in nursing,” Galen’s Dean of Nursing Sharon Roberts, MS, ARNP said. “We are committed to providing the best and most up-to-date nursing education possible, and this growth of our facilities illustrates that commitment.”
The new school is approximately one mile from the former campus and will also feature seven expanded multi-media classrooms, a science laboratory, a 40-seat computer laboratory, expanded student resource center and expanded clinical learning laboratories. The new campus, located at 11101 Roosevelt Boulevard in St. Petersburg, offers easy access to I-275 and Gandy Bridge and will also provide students access to an on-site café.
In addition, the new clinical simulation center, which is scheduled to open in April, is 2,300 square feet and comprises six rooms: two simulated patient care rooms, a control room, two debriefing rooms and a lobby. The lab will feature two high fidelity METI Nursing simulator mannequins with nursing curriculum integration software manufactured by Medical Education Technologies, Inc. (METI), of Sarasota, Florida.
The simulators themselves are specifically designed to provide students experience in dealing with lifelike patient scenarios in a safe learning environment. For instance, if a simulator displays a fever, the student would intervene by administering the appropriate medication and the simulator will respond with a programmed response based upon the appropriateness of the student intervention. The simulators can mimic multiple variations of physiologic indicators, including pupil dilation, pulses, heart and bowel sounds, and even vocalization of symptoms. The student would interpret these responses as cues to implement nursing interventions.
“The opening of our advanced clinical simulation laboratory will enable us to prepare our students for the remarkably difficult and important work they have ahead of them,” said Tom Rimes, MSN, RN, Galen School of Nursing’s Director of Clinical Simulation Laboratory. “This state-of-the-art laboratory will allow us to address an important component of nursing education – the ability to translate nursing theory into safe and effective patient and family care. Our goal is to graduate caring, compassionate nurses who make sound clinical judgments.”
About Galen College of Nursing
Founded over 20 years ago, Galen College of Nursing is one of the largest private nursing schools in the United States. With a focus solely on nursing education, the College offers practical/vocational nurse (PN/VN) and associate degree nursing programs to students on its campuses in Louisville, Ky., San Antonio, Texas, Tampa Bay, Fla., and Cincinnati, Ohio. Galen is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. For more information about Galen College of Nursing, visit our website.
