With NKU’s college of health professions having only been introduced to the university in 2009, the department is already in talks with a new facility.

According to Sallie Parker Lotz, Assistant Dean
Undergraduate Degree Program Academic Advisor, there will be a new innovative health and sciences building that will see students stay within the health programs.

“With this new building, we will have room to grow,” said Lotz. “We are just constrained by the space.”

NKU has seen a huge increase in technological advancement where students are examined under a controlled environment by their professors.

These simulators create real life scenarios in which students need to act to what is happening to their patient, which is a $60,000 dummy.

“The students need to be put under pressure to see how they would work in a stressful situation,” said Lotz. “We record their every move and debrief them afterwards.

These situations are all triggered and determined by the professors themselves who have full control over the dummy’s state at all times throughout the exercise.

“If we want the dummy to die, we let them die,” said Lotz.

The simulators have been a great innovation to NKU and have seen many students thrilled to be working in that environment according to Lotz.

The state of the art simulators are just one of the few reasons that see students returning to the college of health professions from semester to semester.

Erin Robinson, Assistant Professor of Nursing, mentioned that one of the biggest reasons students keep coming back to the program are the patients.

“First clinical is where students discover if this is really for them,” said Robinson. “I have had one student this semester, being in clinical, that said this isn’t for me and that’s okay.”

With the health professions being confined by their current facility, students have been turned away as a result.

“We have had to turn people away since we are at a space limitation, once the new innovative health center is constructed, we can increase enrollment,” said Robinson.

According to Lotz, the new health center will have larger classrooms and more simulators, which will create more classes, resulting in increased enrollment.

“We are really excited, it’s a wonderful opportunity for the entire region,” said Robinson.

Robinson believes that NKU could use the new innovative health center as a recruiting tool to reach a wider range of students.

“We are going to have an amazing health innovation centre,” said Robinson. “I really think that’s going to help recruiting internationally.”