A lifelike technology at Seminole State College gives nursing students hands-on experience in labor and delivery scenarios.
Victoria, a robot with blinking eyes, a pulse and blood pressure, is helping students enhance their training.
Students in the labor room meet not just Victoria, but also actors playing her family to practice interpersonal skills as well what they've learned in the classroom.
“In my era of nursing, when I was in the OB-labor and delivery suite, we were told, 'Stand against the wall. Don't touch a thing. Just watch.' Now the students actually do it," Dr. Cheryl Cicotti, associate dean of nursing at Seminole State College, told News 6 anchor Kirstin O’Connor.
The students are tested in three training simulations: two phases of labor and then delivery.
The training helps the students perform under pressure, with different potential outcomes, including breech delivery and cesarean sections.
"Did it make you feel prepared to be in that scenario in real life?" O’Connor asked.
"What we learn in class and in clinicals definitely prepared us, but getting that experience was definitely completely different,” one student said.
Cicotti said with a growing aging population there is a critical need for nurses in Central Florida.
"Nowadays, there are a limited amount of OB areas that students can get into. Our hospitals are very busy, but there's a lot of nursing programs, so we have got to be able to give the students that experience so they can become better nurses," Cicotti said.
"I don't think we would be able to make it without the simulations. It's such a good way to learn and really be able to make mistakes without, you know, harming a real life patient," student Erin Thole said.
The technology to give the students at Seminole State College this hands-on experience is not cheap.
The human patient simulators cost between $60,000 and $90,000. Faculty education is another component, along with lab assistants, actors and a lot of brain power.
In all, it's an investment 10 years in the making.
"We had a 99 percent pass rate this last quarter, which was exceptional and the top one for this area," Cicotti said.