Nursing Skills and Simulation Labs

During our Direct Entry MSN program, you and a small group of peers will complete a series of nursing skills and simulation labs at our learning site in Pleasant Prairie or at our Center for Clinical Simulation in Milwaukee. (The location of your labs will be determined by the site in which you are enrolled.)

Under the guidance of faculty, these labs will help prepare you for your clinical rotations—providing individualized learning experiences that teach you how to apply advanced nursing skills in a controlled, safe environment.

Skills Lab

Skills labs are the equivalent of learning to walk before you can run. In your skills labs, you’ll get an up-close-and-personal look at nursing skills in action, demonstrated by skilled instructors, along with plenty of practice applying them. From learning how to assess patient vital signs and heart sounds to tracheal suctioning, inserting IVs and catheters and other complex procedures, our skills labs will help you gain confidence in your nursing skills to provide patients with the best possible care every day.

Simulation Labs

Our nursing simulation labs get you as close as possible to real-world, high-pressure patient care scenarios, preparing you for your clinical rotations at various health care facilities in metro-Milwaukee, southern Wisconsin or northern Illinois. Covering a variety of clinical scenarios, these on-campus clinical simulations help you develop your nursing skills using real health care equipment and patient care manikins in a mock clinical environment.

The anatomically correct, high-fidelity manikins help create realistic situations that will help you develop your critical-thinking, decision-making and problem-solving skills—all of which are essential to safe, competent patient care. Our simulated learning activities can also expose you to situations you may not encounter during your clinical rotations.

Working in a controlled environment with an instructor by your side gives you the chance to ask plenty of questions and hone your skills without the fear of putting a patient at risk. Nursing simulations are comprised of three main steps:

1. Preparation work for the specific clinical scenario
2. Completion of the simulation under instructor supervision
3. Performance evaluation and debriefing with the instructor

You’ll find our debriefing rooms are set up so that you can watch live simulations as well as play back your performance in a simulated activity, which is helpful during the learning process.