Üsküdar University Nursing Laboratory is an advanced clinical simulation center where Nursing department students practice their theoretical medical knowledge, patient care processes, and invasive/non-invasive intervention techniques in a safe environment.
- Main Objective: To enable students to maximize their psychomotor skills without compromising patient safety in this area designed with a fully equipped hospital ward architecture before going to hospitals and clinical internships.
- Academic Contribution: The laboratory embodies the practical counterparts of theoretical anatomy, pharmacology, internal medicine, and surgical nursing courses. It develops students' professional reflexes—such as critical thinking, clinical decision-making, strict adherence to sterility, and patient-nurse communication—at an academic level.
Devices and Technical Equipment Available in the Laboratory
The laboratory infrastructure houses all medical device equipment found in a modern hospital room and intensive care unit, as well as advanced simulators belonging to different age groups. Under Featured Features, the laboratory equipment includes:
- Advanced Patient Simulators (Manikins): Full-body adult, pediatric, and newborn manikins whose vital signs such as respiration, pulse, blinking, heart and lung sounds can be digitally controlled, and which respond to scenario-based clinical situations (heart attack, cardiac arrest, etc.).
- Intravenous (IV) and Injection Training Manikins: Anatomical arm and hip models designed for the flawless execution of intravenous catheter placement, blood drawing, intramuscular and subcutaneous injection techniques.
- Clinical Measurement and Monitoring Devices: Bedside monitors used to monitor patients' vital signs, digital and mechanical sphygmomanometers, pulse oximeters, electrocardiography (ECG) devices, and glucometers (blood glucose meters).
- Catheterization and Care Manikins: Modular manikin sets suitable for urinary catheter insertion, nasogastric feeding tube placement, tracheostomy care, and wound/stoma care applications.
- Defibrillator and Resuscitation (CPR) Sets: Defibrillator devices that deliver electrical shocks to the heart in emergency life support applications, and training manikins that digitally report CPR (chest compression) quality (depth and rate).
- Central Gas and Vacuum Simulations: Integration of oxygen and vacuum (suction) therapy units located at the bedsides just like in hospital wards.
Research Areas and Application Areas
The practical course curricula carried out in the laboratory cover a wide range from basic nursing fundamentals to the most complex intensive care scenarios:
- Basic Nursing Principles and Hygiene: Patient repositioning in bed, bed bath, putting on sterile gloves and gowns, dressing changes using aseptic techniques, and infection control protocols.
- Medication Administration and Safety: Oral, topical, and parenteral (injection/serum) drug preparation and administration practices in accordance with the rules of the right patient, right drug, right dose, right route, and right time (Safe Medication Principles).
- Monitoring and Evaluation of Vital Signs: Simulations for making temperature, pulse, respiration, and blood pressure measurements to clinically and early detect abnormal conditions (tachycardia, hypotension, etc.).
- Critical Care and Airway Management: Aspiration of patients in intensive care, management of oxygen therapies, enteral/parenteral nutrition follow-ups, and execution of blue code algorithms in emergency situations.
Contributions to Students and the Industry
The Nursing Laboratory reduces students' adaptation process to health institutions to zero after graduation, introducing them to the sector as leading health professionals committed to patient rights and professional ethics.
- Experience and Self-Confidence in a Safe Environment: Students have the comfort of practicing on manikins until they perfect their skills (making mistakes and learning from them) before encountering real patients. This minimizes anxiety in the clinical field.
- High Employment and Career Opportunities: Graduates who successfully complete the advanced technological medical systems and clinical processes in this laboratory are rapidly and preferentially employed as "Ward Nurse", "Intensive Care Nurse", "Training Nurse", or "Manager Nurse" in state hospitals, university hospitals, internationally accredited private hospital chains, intensive care units, emergency services, and dialysis/rehabilitation centers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which departments use this laboratory? This laboratory is primarily and actively used by students of the Nursing (Undergraduate, Master's, and Doctorate) program within the Faculty of Health Sciences. Additionally, vocational school programs with shared clinical practices, such as First and Emergency Aid, can also benefit from the laboratory in a coordinated manner.
Are applications performed on real patients in the laboratory? No. In accordance with patient safety, patient rights, and medical ethical rules, applications are strictly never performed on real patients in the laboratory environment. All interventional and care-oriented processes are carried out on high-sensitivity patient simulators and computer-controlled manikins that provide anatomical responses nearly identical to reality.
Is the laboratory open for individual use by students outside of class hours? Yes, students can individually benefit from the manikins and study areas in the laboratory outside of class hours—with the approval of the laboratory-in-charge experts, study schedule, and supervision—in order to improve their manual skills, repeat injection or IV practices, and prepare for clinical exams (OSCE, etc.).
Is the laboratory open to external sectoral collaborations or in-service trainings? Yes, the laboratory has an infrastructure fully compatible with in-service orientation trainings to be conducted in partnership with hospitals' nursing services directorates, practical stages of intensive care nursing certification programs, and sectoral collaborations for clinical application performance tests of next-generation medical consumables.
What are the basic rules that students must follow in the laboratory? In order for clinical discipline to begin in the laboratory, it is mandatory for students to attend practical classes wearing nursing uniforms/scrubs and to comply with cleaning and sterilization rules. It is essential not to interfere with sensitive and expensive digital simulators outside the instructions and parametric guidance of the relevant instructor or laboratory supervisor.
