Mobile in-person training for careers in nursing and long-term care will be rolled out later this fall by TRU.
Dean of Nursing at Thompson Rivers University, Rani Srivastava said this simulation lab will give healthcare students in rural areas the opportunity to complete their practicums and enter high-demand careers.
“So the idea is that this lab will allow them to be able to develop and do their practicing and learning their skills and gaining that confidence and competence in their community.”
She also explained how this unit will benefit those students beyond their virtual classes, to complete their practicums.
“If you think about how we educate Health Care workers they learn a lot of theory and then they need to be able to practice in a lab setting their skills, how to translate theory into action. Then they have the opportunity to actually go and work in health care settings and work with patients and hone their skills. So this mobile lab is for that middle portion of their studies.”
Srivastava said for many people it’s not feasible to leave their communities and come to Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops or Williams Lake campus for a few weeks at a time.
In the future, the Mobile Health Care Simulation Lab may be used for other purposes such as a mobile vaccination unit or for TRU’s Medical Laboratory Assistant program offered by the Faculty of Science.
Srivastava said they are working through the details and looking at what the program will look like and what that’s going to be so that’s the work for the next months ahead to map all of that out.