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Nursing Professor Robert Dorman Contributes to RBJ Story on Technology in Healthcare
Technology takes a prominent role in Rochester’s healthcare higher ed programs
By: Caurie Putnam | October 26, 2022
The beat goes on as technology continues to play an ever-increasing role in educating tomorrow’s healthcare professionals.
Educare’s 2023 Higher Education Trend Watch identified the top ten trends in higher education today — six of which are related to technology — including the “expansion of the digital transformation of higher education” (number six).
How are local institutions of higher education using technology to prepare their own healthcare students for practice?
Roberts Wesleyan University faculty use independent and group technology tools in the classroom to help build clinical judgment with students, according to Robert Dorman, the school’s director of traditional and graduate nursing programs and associate professor.
“It’s simple technology tools that seem to make a point really well,” Dorman said. “So even simple games like Kahoot or Poll Everywhere give us the ability to look and see what our students are getting or not getting. And then allows us to go back and perhaps go over something again if we need to.”
Clinically, some of the technology tools used at Roberts Wesleyan in their high-tech simulation center are high-fidelity patient simulators (mannequins) that mimic human anatomy and physiology; bar code scanners that allow students to ID patients and record the mediations they administer; monitor displays; and ventilator simulators.
The school’s high-fidelity mannequins can be used to simulate many different events, including the birthing process, which is not something every nursing student gets to experience in person.
“It’s our goal to have a simulation tied to every course,” said Dorman, who explains students are not graded on simulations because faculty want the simulation center to be a safe place where it’s OK to make mistakes in clinical judgment and learn from them. “Our goal is to prepare them in the most realistic way possible.”
Rochester Business Journal
Caurie Putnam is a Rochester-area freelance writer.