New Skills Lab Manager Needs Help!

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I am a new nursing educator. I have been asked to assume responsibility for managing and updating our skills lab (ADN RN program). I have never taught skills, and my own experience in the skills lab (as a student) was a long time ago...

Can anyone point me in the direction of good resources for a new skills lab manager? I need to start from the ground up. How do I know that we are teaching the specific skills that our students most need to know? Who sets the standards for the 'right' way to do each individual skill? How do I make the most effective use of our (very limited) skills lab hours?

We currently use the Potter and Perry Fundamentals Textbook, a set of Mosby skills DVD's, and an old lab guide written by a faculty member quite a few years ago. I have 10-12 faculty members working in different sections of our skills lab and they all seem to have different ideas on what should be taught and how.

I am looking for any professional organizations, standards of practice, national educational standards, evidence-based and professionally-vetted sources of information about skills lab instruction for RN students.

Any and all advice is welcome!!

Thank you,

Kathleen

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Specializes in OR, Education.

Kathleen -

We use the textbook and the textbook resources to go by what to teach...Potter & Perry has checklists that can be printed; I'm not sure if they have online videos the students can watch on their own time - Medcom has good videos that students can watch before lab and then print out a certificate verifying that they have watched the video.

It will be interesting to see what others do for their fundamentals lab!

lyn

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Specializes in Nursing Education, ICU.

I was the co-founder for a BSN program in 2011. Just graduated with my MSN but had been a clinical instructor for 3 years. I was clueless! SO when we launched our lab- I went to a local university with an established BSN program (Marymount University) and spoke with the skills lab coordinator. Between her help (man--she was SOOOO helpful!), the Potter & Perry Resources & group faculty meeting- we pulled it together. Granted it was a work in progress at first but now it is a great course!

Learning lessons: ask for help from outside the organization (new ideas & different perspective), find someone within your "crew" willing to try innovative ways to do skill checkoffs & incorporate EBP into the lab. We looked at the skills and determined that there were "priority" skills that were vital for the student RN to know: sterile technique, hand-washing, environmental survey, vitals, physical assessment, trach care/suction, foleys, NGT care (insertion & checking for placement), Med administration & central lines dressing changes.

We "touched" on chest tubes, blood administration--chest tubes were covered in Med Surg & so was blood admin. Bed making & baths--they watched a video. I figured that wasn't the most challenging concept to grasp :)

Another great resource--your clinical instructors. They will tell you what areas the students have been struggling in once they started their clinical rotation (for us physical assessment was a issue that we had to seriously "tightened" up in lab).

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Thanks for your reply! It sounds like we have similar approaches. :)

Kathleen

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Thanks, Janet, for your input!

I have a mixed group of faculty working with me in the skills lab. Some have no interest in collaboration and innovation, unfortunately. But I have several full-time faculty that are motivated and creative and an absolute pleasure to work with. I also have 2 adjuncts that have worked skills in other schools. I plan to ask them for input/feedback/new ideas, too. I will attempt to reachout to clinical adjuncts and other skills lab managers. Thank you for the suggestion.

The total overhaul of our skills lab is going to be my summer project. :)

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I heard a rumor that NCLEX is moving toward competency-based licensure. To me, that means that they must be developing national standards describing which skills an RN is expected to know and how said skills must be preformed... Right?

If anyone has any suggestions on where I can find information AIMED AT EDUCATORS on this topic, I would be very grateful!

Kathleen

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Specializes in Nursing Education, ICU.

So the question of the day: how did the overhaul of the skills lab go?

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