Simulation-Based Learning in Nursing Education: A Collaboration between the Faculty of Nursing and the Faculty of Communication Arts, Kasem Bundit University

Abstract

Thailand and the globe had been affected by several waves of COVID-19 pandemic severely and continually since January 2020. The Faculty of Nursing at Kasem Bundit University had to adjust teaching methods especially the nursing practicum which we could not send nursing students to practice in hospitals as usual. To protect the students and clinical instructors from getting the Coronavirus 2019, we developed a workshop for instructors on how to prepare standardized patients for clinical instruction. The instructors were trained to write a script in their clinical areas. After that those written scripts were discussed among faculty members of nursing and communication arts. The latter then used the script to select and prepare a proper actor. During the teaching and learning sessions, 2-3 nursing students would take roles as nurses in a room decorated as a ward in hospital. There would be a reflection session in the end, where the standardized patient, the nursing students who acted as nurses, other students who observed outside and instructors would share together what they feel and learned. The lesson learned and a success we shared from this project may provide more alternatives for nursing faculties to arrange clinical experiences for their students during the post COVID-19 new normal way of lives and can still keep the standard of teaching and learning and also help the students to achieve the expected learning outcomes.