Vermont desperately needs nurses. Its nursing schools need instructors.
VTDigger
Last month, Jessica Wood, the director of the School of Nursing at Norwich University, introduced a reporter to Arthur, a child lying in a hospital bed on the Northfield campus.
Normally, medical privacy protections might prohibit such an introduction. But Arthur is no ordinary patient — he’s a medical mannequin, or manikin, a tool for nursing school students to learn to perform diagnoses and procedures in a safe and controlled setting.
“We just got Arthur,” Wood said. “He’s our pediatric simulator.”
Arthur is part of a haul of brand-new equipment — including manikins and virtual reality goggles — funded by nearly $500,000 in federal appropriations awarded to Norwich last fall.
It comes as the federal and state governments invest millions of dollars in Vermont’s nursing programs, intended to combat the state’s chronic nursing shortage.