Nursing education requires clinical and laboratory experiences to help students transition from the classroom to real world situations. Labs give students opportunities to develop critical thinking skills and at the same time experience the challenges and rewards of nursing. Throughout the lab experiences, highly qualified supervisors are on hand to ensure that students understand their roles, correct their errors and celebrate their successes.
Queensborough Community College in Bayside, New York, a key educator of nurses serving Queens, offers an associate degree in its nursing program that includes a strong clinical component that is incorporated into the program and the college. Students take laboratory courses in both public and private acute care hospitals and in the nursing department's five state-of-the-art labs, its simulation lab with robotic patients and the Nursing Computer Resource Center. At Tacoma Community College in the State of Washington, the nursing Associate of Applied Sciences degree includes nursing intervention laboratories in which students are supervised in simulated conditions that help them hone their practical and technical skills. During a first lab course, students learn basic hygiene, interviewing, making a physical assessment and taking vital signs. The second lab offers such necessary experiences as administering medications, working in sterile conditions and changing dressings, while the third lab delves into administering blood and intravenous medications, running central lines and tracheotomy care.
At the University of Colorado-Pueblo, the baccalaureate degree in nursing includes several labs, some in the university's simulation lab and some in hospitals and other care facilities. The simulation lab gives students a secure setting into which to work on prioritizing work, assessing patients and solving problems. Additionally, students are required to participate in clinical experiences working with children and families, in settings with expectant mothers and other environments. Similarly, Indiana University's School of Nursing requires students pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing to take 19 core subjects that include lectures, clinical experiences and laboratory work. The labs begin in the sophomore year with a lab practicum in a comprehensive health assessment and a technology of nursing course and continue through the final two years of the program.