Assumption has begun construction on a new, 41,000- square-foot Health Sciences building that will welcome students in fall 2020.
The new building will feature four classrooms, one for 32 students, two for 48, and a large tiered classroom for 50. These classrooms will not be used exclusively for the nursing and physician assistant programs, but rather for all academic programs on campus. Each class- room will be fully equipped with a recording system for simulations that will be used during debriefings.
The Health Sciences building’s nursing floor will feature a spacious nursing skills lab with seven full-sized hospital beds for teaching proper patient care. Four simulation labs will include high-fidelity mannequins which will simulate actual patient conditions (vitals, seizures, cardiac arrest, childbirth, etc.) remotely controlled by a technician.
“The opportunity to have interactive classrooms and clinical labs equipped with the latest Apple techno-logy will also engage the students in active learning strategies, which is another means of developing their critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills,” said Caitlin Stover, Ph.D., RN, dean of nursing.
The physician assistant floor will feature a practice lab with 11 exam tables, and two simulation labs, comparable to the nursing floor, complement four Objective Structured Clinical Examination rooms where live “patient-actors” will dictate a script of medical mala-dies to teach students how to take a medical history, diagnose a patient, and perform a physical exam. The clinical lab space also will serve as a learning environment for clinical procedures, such as suturing and interventional skills. The program will welcome its first cohort of students in January 2021.
“Physician assistant students will learn using the state- of-the-art facilities available in the new building,” said Professor Michael Whitehead, dean of health professions and physician assistant program director. “The extensive clinical lab space will provide an area for students to learn and practice patient assessment and clinical skills. High-fidelity mannequins and live patients in the sim labs and patient exam rooms will greatly improve the students’ patient care skills.”
“In this new building, we will not simply train future nurses and healthcare professionals to treat a disease or ailment,” said President Francesco C. Cesareo, Ph.D. “At Assumption, our unique programs will form individuals who will treat the human person with compassion. Healthcare professionals that graduate from Assumption will be renowned for their empathy and as those who understand and respect the dignity of the human person.”
